County Cavan and Dublin, Ireland 2026

The main event of my trip was Regina and Sam’s wedding at the Virginia Park Lodge in County Cavan. Back on Saturday, upon arrival at the airport back, the Customs Officer asked the purpose of my trip, and I said I was there for a wedding and sight-seeing. He asked where and then told me he was also going to a wedding at the Virginia Park Lodge two months later! Quite the coincidence!

credit: Wonder and Magic

Galway, Ireland 2026

I was determined to visit Galway, which is described as Ireland’s “bohemian cultural heart, famous for its vibrant street music, medieval history, and lively pub scene,” and because the Galway races take place during the last week in July, I chose to go the week before. Now that we knew our way around Cork, it took only a few minutes to reach the bus stop for a three hour trip that was fairly scenic.

Arms of the Martin family, one of the Tribes of Galway (1641)

The Rúin by Dervla McTiernan

The Rúin is a dark, suspenseful debut set in Galway, first in a series. It follows Detective Cormac Reilly as he relocates from Dublin with his girlfriend, and (somewhat mysteriously) is treated with hostility by his new police department, which assigns him to cold cases (some of which are not just cold but wet - he thinks his colleagues are deliberately spilling coffee on the case files to show their contempt of him), despite an impressive 20-year career. When Jack Blake commits suicide by jumping in the River Corrib, his fiancee and sister are devastated and argue there are circumstances regarding his death that make murder more likely.

Cork, Ireland 2026

On Monday, we took an 8 am bus to Cork, the second-largest city in the Republic of Ireland (my cousin Sabrina had given us good advice about a bus stop closer to our B&B but I didn’t relax until the bus actually stopped and let us buy tickets on board)(everyone kept warning us that having a ticket in advance guarantees you a seat but if you have a ticket for bus and miss it, you are out of luck). We only had one day in Cork so we wanted to get an early start. 

St. Fin Barre Cathedral

Kilkenny and Waterford, Ireland 2026

A quick look at some of the highlights of my trip to Ireland, beginning in Waterford – several of us were invited to the wedding of our friends, Duncan (who I met when I was 5 - very Betsy-Tacyish) and Marlene’s daughter, Regina, in County Cavan. Having only had a 24-hour layover in Dublin many years ago, I decided I wanted to see more of the country and persuaded my college classmate, Susan, to join me for several days of sight-seeing before we headed to the wedding.

Mt. Congreve Gardens

The Elements by John Boyne - Reading Ireland Month 2026

In this very dark novel by Irish writer John Boyne, four novellas are connected through the trauma that each character experienced; some are victims and some have turned around to inflict their pain on others. Each segment is named after an element. 

The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien - Reading Ireland 2026

O’Brien’s first novel is a coming of age story, with autobiographical elements, about Caithleen Brady and her frenemy, Baba Brennan; two girls from rural Ireland who yearn for something not available at home. Cait’s mother dotes on her but does not protect her or prepare her for life, perhaps because she cannot protect herself from a drunken, spendthrift husband. Cait is conscious that she doesn’t have the possessions her friend does: nice clothes, for example, or a bicycle. Baba always wants more, however, and helps herself in a very unattractive way to what she wants – she takes the flowers Cait picked for their teacher so she can present them, she snatches biscuits from the Bradys’ kitchen although she must know how little the family has, and she ends up with Mrs. Brady’s rings. She is a vivid but unlikable character while Cait is dreamy but annoyingly passive.

The Dark Hours by Amy Jordan - a debut thriller set in Cork

In this debut, a retired detective is forced to revisit her most traumatic case when two young women are killed in eerily similar circumstances. Retired Garda Julia Harte lives modestly in a secluded Irish village with her dog, trying not to think about the murderer who destroyed her life back in 1994.  Even when she learns he died in prison, Julia cannot relax and she is startled to get a call from her one-time chief superintendent, Des Riordan. He asks her to return to Cork to help with the new investigation, in case it is a copycat crime.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch – Reading Ireland Month 2025

After Eilish Stack answers the door one night to find two policemen asking for her husband, she slowly begins to realize nothing will be the same for her family. Her husband’s job seems innocuous – he is an administrator for the Teachers’ Union of Ireland but these men are investigating an allegation against him:

Long Island by Colm Tóibín – 15/20 Books of Summer

In Brooklyn (2009), Eilis Lacey was encouraged by her sister Rose to leave her small town in Ireland for better employment prospects in New York. She finds a job in a department store and takes bookkeeping classes at night but is lonely. Eventually, she began attending Friday night dances with a friend and meets an Italian-American plumber. When she gets bad news from home that Rose has died, Tony persuades her to get married secretly before she returns to Ireland to be with her mother.

Daughter of Lir by Diana Norman - Reading Ireland Month 2024

Title: Daughter of Lir
Author: Diana Norman
Publication: Headline Books, paperback, 1988
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 12th century Ireland

Description: Taken from Ireland and abandoned at a French convent in the Loire Valley at 6, Finola is renamed Sister Boniface and brought up by the nuns, then at 18 is chosen to be Abbess of Kildare in Ireland. Her focus on her new Abbey and not the warring factions around it is disastrous and she makes a serious enemy, Dermot of Leinster.

Foster by Claire Keegan

Title: Foster
Author: Claire Keegan
Publication: Grove Press, hardcover, originally published in 2010
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Ireland

Description: One summer, a young girl is brought by her father to stay with relatives on a farm while her mother is pregnant. She arrives dusty and timid but the Kinsellas make her welcome and slowly she gains confidence.

Haunted Ground by Erin Hart #ReadingIreland2023

Title: Haunted Ground
Author: Erin Hart
Publication: Scribner, hardcover, 2003
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Present-day Ireland

Description: When farmers cutting turf in a peat bog uncover a well-preserved woman’s body, the pathologist refers it to Cormac Maguire, an archeologist at University College Dublin and Dr. Nora Gavin in the anatomy department at Trinity College Medical School.

The Winter Guest by W.C. Ryan #ReadingIreland2023

Title: The Winter Guest
Author: W.C. Ryan
Publication: Arcade Publishing, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Historical Mystery
Setting: Ireland, 1921

Description: After an ordinary evening of cards and conversation, Maud Prendeville, Lord Kilcolgan’s daughter, and two companions are killed in an IRA ambush, yards from her home in the Irish countryside.

The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

Title: The Mountains Wild
Author: Sarah Stewart Taylor
Publication: Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s, hardcover 2020
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Dublin

Description: Twenty-three years ago, Maggie D’Arcy’s cousin Erin disappeared in Ireland so she flew from Long Island to Dublin to represent the family and find out what was going on.

The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan: for Reading Ireland Month 2022

Title: The Good Turn
Author: Dervla McTiernan
Publication: Blackstone Publishing, trade paperback, 2021
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Setting: Present-day Ireland

Description: Three separate storylines are deftly brought together in the most recent book by Dervla McTiernan, an Irish writer who now lives in Australia. The story begins with Anna and her suddenly mute 9-year-old, clearly in trouble.

The Christmas Party by Karen Swan

Title: The Christmas Party
Author: Karen Swan
Publication: Pan Books, paperback, 2019
Genre: Fiction/Romance
Setting: Present-day Ireland

Description: When their father dies unexpectedly, sisters Ottilie (Ottie), Philippa (Pip), and Wilhelmina (Willow) are devastated, and the way he left the estate causes even more angst.

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard - setting a trap for a killer

Title: The Nothing Man
Author: Catherine Ryan Howard
Publication: Blackstone Publishing, hardcover, 2020
Genre: Suspense
Setting: 21st century Ireland

Description: When Eve Black was 12, a man broke into her house and killed her parents and little sister. Eve survived only because she was in the bathroom.

Thicker Than Water by Madeleine Polland - atmospheric suspense in Ireland

Title: Thicker Than Water
Author: Madeleine Polland (1918-2005)
Publication: Pyramid Books, paperback, 1966 (originally published in 1965)
Genre: Fiction/Suspense
Setting: Ireland

Description: When Veronica learns her grandmother, from whom she has been estranged since adolescence, is dying and has asked for her, she leaves London and heads to her deceased father’s childhood Irish home, Hollymount, on the border of Galway and Mayo.

The Searcher - slow paced suspense from Tana French

Title: The Searcher
Author: Tana French
Publication: Viking, hardcover, 2020
Genre: Suspense

Description: When Cal Hooper decides to get away from it all – the senseless violence of 25 years as a Chicago policeman, a bad divorce, a daughter who has moved to Seattle and barely speaks to him, he buys a run-down cottage in a small village on the west side of Ireland anticipating that fixing it up will keep him busy for years.