Cillian Murphy stars in Grief is the Thing with Feathers. Plus: The Unmanageable Sisters at the Abbey and THISISPOPBABY’s mini-St Patrick’s festival

Another Life: Michael Viney on Richard Murphy’s Connemara life

A marginalised Yorkshire family battle their community in a well-written but flawed debut from Fiona Mozley

He’s the first actor in the series who is ‘bigger than Bond’. They were desperate to keep him

Previously unpublished correspondence from the poet detail allegations of beating and says Hughes told her he wished she was dead

The legacy of the Donegal-born poet and performer has been reclaimed in a new book

‘In a country with a lot of barrier-breaking to be done for women, a female narrative is a welcome one’

Review: ‘Sunday with Miriam’, ‘Marian Finucane’, ‘The Right Hook’, ‘Off the Ball’, ‘Tom Dunne’, ‘Moth’

Poets find fruitful focus in writing about their domestic pets, says Maureen Kennelly

Jonathan Bate focuses on the poet’s love life, particularly with Sylvia Plath, at the expense of insight into his work

‘First Editions’ in Dublin’s Ballsbridge is a popular destination for book lovers

Peadar King’s love of Inishbofin is clear from the weekend’s schedule of stimulating events

Passionate, relentlessly energetic and possessing a collegial focus: ahead of the announcement of the inaugural laureate in The Irish Times, the selection panel discuss what they are looking for

A play about the poet’s escape to Ireland with his new partner after the death of Sylvia Plath isn’t particularly kind to Hughes

Francis Harvey: April 13th, 1925 - November 7th, 2014

‘Poet who made your hair stand on end’ has published five collections

Contemporary Irish poetry is doing well, as the breadth of work up for the Irish Times Poetry Now award demonstrates

`Use it or lose it'

An Irishwoman’s Diary about literary voices old and new

Paperback review