FROM Seamus Heaney's new collection, The Spirit Level - shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot poetry prize and the Whitbread prize - to Seamus Deane's novel, Reading in the Dark - shortlisted for the Whitbread and the Booker - this has been a triumphant year for Irish writers.
Frank McCourt's moving memoir, Angela's Ashes, has been the biggest surprise success. McCourt is a retired schoolteacher who grew up in Limerick and emigrated to New York. Angela's Ashes, his first book, has reached the bestseller list not only in Ireland but also in the US and Germany.
Already garlanded with a Lannan award in the US, Mary Morrissy's distinctive first novel, Mother of Pearl, has been shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. Roddy Doyle's latest novel, The Woman Who Walked into Doors is also about a woman: Paula, the character he created for the hard hitting TV drama series, Family. Set in Argentina at the time of the Falklands War, Colm Toibin's picaresque third novel, The Story of the Night, was also published recently, as was Dermot Healy's vivid memoir, The Bend for Home.
Edna O'Brien's new novel, which echoes the X Case, Down by the River is exquisitely written," said Clare Boylan: "the story has the dense and suffocating atmosphere of a fairy tale". William Trevor's new collection of stories, After Rain, is both perceptive and darkly humorous.
Maeve Binchy's new novel, Evening Class was described by Penny Perrick as "an enjoyable tale of moral evolution" told with wizardly skill and shapely plotting". Meanwhile, Mayo born Mike McCormack won the Rooney prize for his daringly surreal collection of short stories, Getting it in the Head. Folklorist Angela Bourke produced an impressive debut collection of stories, By Salt Water, while Another Alice, by Lia Mills, is a memorable first novel about a woman coming to terms with having been sexually abused by her father.
Thomas Kinsella's Collected Poems 1956 - 1994 gathers together the work of a lifetime's fruitful and ground breaking versifying. This year also saw the publication of Rita Ann Higgins's spirited Selected Poems (Sunny Side Plucked), as well as Paul Durcan's seasonally appropriate Christmas Day. Ciaran Carson produced both a new collection of poetry, Opera Et Cetera and an acclaimed book on Irish music: Last Night's Fun. There was also a frank new collection from Cathal O Searcaigh: Na Buachai Bana.
In archaeology, there was the excellent Ancient Ireland from Prehistory to the Middle Ages with photographs by Jacqueline O'Brien and text by Peter Harbison. The book, which includes photographs of 200 ancient monuments around Ireland, was commended by Pat Wallace for its "sumptuous photographs" and "up to date information, chronologically marshalled by one of Irish archaeology's finest scholars."
The inimitable Tim Robinson also produced a new book, Setting Foot on the Shores of Connemara and Other Writings.
In the field of biography, Anthony Cronin's acclaimed Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist gives "just and accurate comments on the ... and the ... great postwar trilogy of novels," said Gerry Dukes. There was also Mike Murphy's revealing memoir, Mike and Me - described by Pat McCabe as "a fine read" with "a near anarchic imagination". The cabaret singer Agnes Bernelle's lively memoir, The Fun Palace, published by Lilliput, has already been bought by a German publisher after a huge interest was shown in many Irish published books at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Before the Dawn: An Autobiography by Gerry Adams which covers the period up until the hunger strikes in 1981 (with an epilogue on the peace process) has sold well in spite of Fintan O'Toole's question: "Why write a book about yourself when you cannot answer the critical questions about your personal involvement in events that have shaped, and destroyed, so many lives?" Meanwhile, Phoenix: Policing the Shadows, The Secret War Against Terrorism in Ireland by Jack Holland and Susan Phoenix tells the story of a top intelligence officer with the RUC who led a double life until his death in a helicopter crash on the way to a high security conference in Scotland.
THERE was also John Hume's Personal Views: Politics, Peace and Reconciliation. "This book reinforce the belief that we must continue to listen to this man, the most talented politician of his era," said Niall O'Dowd. Clinton: the President They Deserve by Martin Walker, Washington correspondent of the Guardian put Clinton in an international context and attempted to answer many of the apparent contradictions in his career. Mikhail Gorbachev's Memoirs was notable said Seamus Martin, for its descriptions of dealings with world leaders and its portrayal of Kremlin politics.
In history there was Tom Garvin's 1922: The Birth of Irish Democracy described by Dermot Keogh as "a fine piece of original scholarship". Heralding the rash of forthcoming books on 1798, there was The People's Rising: Wexford 1798 by Daniel Gahan and The Summer Soldiers: the 1798 Rebellion in Antrim and Down by A.T.Q. Stewart. People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891 - 1924 by Orlando Figes was a rich survey of the makings of revolution in Russia.
Irish limes journalists produced their own crop of books this year. Conor O'Clery's The Greening of the White House is a chronicle of the sea change in Irish American relationships under Clinton Nuala O'Faolain's Are You Somebody? The Life and Times of Nuala O'Faolain is a memoir as well as a selection of her Irish Times columns. Green Fields: Gaelic Sport in Ireland by Irish Times sports writer Tom Humphries garnered praise from Sean Purcell: "No one before him has examined so scrupulously the intricate way the games are woven into the fabric of society." The Best of About Women features a selection of Mary Cummins's columns for The Irish Times. In A Year's Turning, Michael Viney celebrates the movement of the seasons in the course of a single year.
In international fiction, there was Alice Munro - Selected Stories from one of our greatest living short story writers. Margaret Atwood was shortlisted for the Booker prize with Alias Grace, as was Beryl Bainbridge for Every Man for Himself That most contentious off prizes was won by Graham Swift for Last Orders.
In biography, Hermione Lee's Virginia Woolf is a satisfying look at one of the century's most intriguing great writers, structured along thematic rather than chronological lines. James Knowlson's exhaustive authorised biography of Beckett: Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett is shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. Barbara Belford's Bram Stoker: A Biography of the Author of Dracula was described by Frank McLynn as "the best biography of Stoker to date" while John Banville was impressed by both Einstein: A Life by Denis Brian and Thomas Mann: A Life by Donald Prater.
In art, "an essential purchase for everyone interested in the visual arts" (in the opinion of Brian Ferran) is Tony O'Malley, edited by Brian Lynch, a collection of essays about one of Ireland's best loved and greatest living painters. There was also Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Portraiture, edited by William Rubin, which Irish Times chief critic Brian Fallon described as "a major study... splendidly illustrated." In poetry, Coleridge: Selected Poems was highly considered for the brilliant annotations - of the book's editor, Richard Holmes.