‘The Ghosts of Rome’ by Joseph O’Connor named the An Post Irish Book of the Year 2025

‘The Ghosts of Rome’ by Joseph O’Connor has been announced as the overall ‘An Post Irish Book of the Year 2025’.

The book was among six titles competing for the accolade, all of which were category winners at the recent 2025 An Post Irish Book Awards. The six books were shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book of the Year on the principle that they secured the highest number of votes during the shortlist voting process across all categories.

Joseph O’Connor’s book was unveiled as the An Post Irish Book of the Year during a one-hour special television show aired on RTÉ One this evening hosted by broadcaster Oliver Callan. The title won ‘The Last Word Listeners’ Choice Award’ at the recent An Post Irish Book Awards and was chosen as the overall An Post Irish Book of the Year 2025 winner by a distinguished panel of judges.

The six nominated titles are the category winners for the Eason Novel of the Year; Dubray Biography of the Year; The Last Word Listeners’ Choice Award; Eason Sports Book of the Year; International Education Services Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year, in honour of John Treacy; and TheJournal.ie Best Irish-Published Book of the Year:

• The Ghosts of Rome – Joseph O’Connor (Harvill, Penguin)
  
• Ninety-Nine Words for Rain (and One for Sun) – Manchán Magan, illustrated by Megan Luddy (Gill Books)
• Nesting – Roisín O’Donnell (Sribner Books from Simon & Schuster)
• Solo – Gráinne O’Brien (Little Island Books)
• Heart on My Sleeve – Andrew Porter (Eriu)
• A Time for Truth: My Father Jason and My Search for Justice and Healing – Sarah Corbett Lynch (Hachette Books Ireland)

Described by the Irish Times as an “extraordinary picture of Rome under Nazi control; brutal, chaotic, treacherous, decaying, wrecked and crumbling, and yet sometimes still bathed in glorious and unexpected light’ Joseph O’Connor’s novel flew straight to Number One in the Irish bestseller chart after only three days on sale, remaining in the overall Irish Top Ten for five weeks and in the Irish Paperback Top Ten for sixteen weeks.

The Ghosts of Rome is the second in Joseph O’Connor’s Escape Line Trilogy, the first novel, My Father’s House, was also an Irish Number One bestseller and has now sold more than 150,000 copies in English. Joseph is currently working on the next novel in the trilogy, which is expected to be published in early 2027.

Joseph O’Connor is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright and broadcaster from Dublin. He is the author of eleven novels including ‘Star of the Sea’, ‘Ghost Light’ (Dublin One City One Book novel 2011) and ‘Shadowplay’. Among his awards are the Prix Zepter for European Novel of the Year, France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, an American Library Association Award and the Irish Pen Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature. His work has also been translated into forty languages and in 2014, he was appointed Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.

A frequent and acclaimed broadcaster, Joseph O’Connor has worked with many musicians, including Paul Brady, The Chieftains, Camille O’Sullivan, Mel Mercier, Martin Hayes, Iarla O’Lionaird, composer Brian Byrne and Scullion. He has performed spoken-word pieces at major venues including the National Concert Hall, New York’s Lincoln Centre, the Barbican Centre, London, and the Royal Albert Hall.

The overall ‘An Post Irish Book of the Year 2025’ winner was decided by the following judging panel:

• Paul Howard, Judging Chair – An author, screenwriter, and newspaper columnist, he is best known as the creator of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, whose exploits he has chronicled across 24 novels. Paul is also a former Sports Journalist of the Year and Newspaper Columnist of the Year. As a screenwriter, he contributed to the BAFTA-winning series Bad Sisters on Apple TV and has most recently written for The Young Offenders and the Irish-Canadian co-production Sisters
  
• Madeleine Keane – Literary Editor of the Sunday Independent, lecturer at University College Dublin and the Irish Writers Centre. She is also Chair of Children’s Books Ireland
• Cyril McGrane – A certified public accountant by profession, Cyril has worked with An Post for the last 27 years, holding a succession of senior roles in retail, operational and logistics management. Cyril is An Post’s key liaison lead with IPC and UPU and he is leading An Post’s Customs 2020 and Brexit programmes
• Sinéad McCorry – With over 30 years’ experience in the book trade, Sinéad is the Retail Manager at Waterstones Ireland, where she has led the brand’s expansion to 12 shops and, more recently, oversaw the ambitious refurbishment of Ireland’s oldest bookshop, Hodges Figgis
• Sara Keating - A reviewer of children’s books for The Irish Times and founder of the Baby Book Club at Dún Laoghaire Libraries - where she served as Writer in Residence at the DLR Lexicon in 2021

Paul Howard, Chair of the Judging Panel, said: "Choosing a Book of the Year was the toughest of tough tasks. We were given six books to read, each of them outstanding in their own class. As one of the judges said, 'It's like comparing the best film you ever saw with the best piece of music you ever heard.' It was very difficult, which is why it took us almost four hours to come up with a winner. There were at least two strong advocates for every book on the list, and I think every single one of the six was at some point in prime position. Most of us changed our minds several times in the room.

In the end, we chose a book that we were all happy to call the Irish Book of the Year. It's a beautiful piece of writing as well as a thrilling piece of historical fiction. In dealing with the theme of good people standing up to the evils of Fascism, it has strong resonance for the times in which we are living."

In case you missed it, you can now watch the ‘An Post Book of the Year’ TV programme on the RTÉ player

Previous winners of the An Post Irish Book of the Year Award include Donal Ryan for Heart, Be At Peace, Paul Murray for The Bee Sting, Sally Hayden for My Fourth Time, We Drowned, Fintan O’Toole for We Don’t Know Ourselves, Doireann Ní Ghríofa for A Ghost in the Throat, the late Vicky Phelan for Overcoming, Emilie Pine for Notes to Self, John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil, Mike Murphy and John Borgonovo for Atlas of the Irish Revolution, Mike McCormack for Solar Bones, Louise O’Neill for Asking For It, Mary Costello for Academy St, Donal Ryan for The Spinning Heart, Michael Harding for Staring at Lakes, and Belinda McKeon for Solace.