Great Irish Reportage

Alongside its world-famous tradition of great fiction, Ireland has a less well known but thrilling tradition of reportage: journalism, dispatches and eyewitness accounts. From Elizabeth Bowen to Colm Tóibín, from Flann O'Brien to Maeve Binchy, some of Ireland's greatest writers have produced first-rate journalism. And from R.M. Smyllie and Conor Cruise O'Brien to Eamon Dunphy and Olivia O'Leary, Ireland has also produced a remarkable number of journalists who can really write.

Now, for the first time, the best of Irish reportage - some of it legendary, some of it unjustly forgotten - is gathered into a single volume. Whether it's Kate O'Brien on the reinterment of W.B. Yeats or Emily O'Reilly on the election to Westminster of Gerry Adams, whether it's Hubert Butler on the Fetherd-on-Sea boycott or Joseph O'Connor's hilarious dispatch from the 1994 World Cup, the pieces in Great Irish Reportage illuminate Irish life in a way that no other form of writing can.