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Dermot Bolger

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The Last Cold Day: Understated lessons of life, love and loss dispatched from the heart

Sara Berkeley’s beautifully written account of her time as a hospice nurse is well worth a read – even if you think poetry is not for you

The State of Dark: Powerful memoir gives voice to a family the Nazis tried to silence

Judith Mok, whose grandparents and aunt died in the Nazi concentration camps, reveals how her family did their best to carry on with their lives, despite ever-present ghosts of a deeply traumatic past

Books: Never So Close, a poem by Dermot Bolger

Never So Close is from Dermot Bolger’s new collection, Other People’s Lives, published by New Island on April 7 at €12.99. For more details, see: newisland.ie/poetry-drama/other-peoples-lives

A generation slipping away: Brendan Kennelly and the changing of Ireland’s literary guard

The works of the legendary Kerry poet, who died last week, will endure for decades to come. But his death has brought a strong sense that we must cherish our surviving literary giants while we still can

Between Two Hells: Ferriter takes stock of Ireland’s ‘small-scale’ yet cruel Civil War

Historian Diarmaid Ferriter’s forensic study of the bitter disputes that drove the Irish Civil War is an important addition to our understanding of the war and its legacy

Fairground Ponies: A poem by Dermot Bolger

The author marks the 150th birthday of the legendary painter Jack B Yeats with a poem specially commissioned for the occasion

In Kiltumper: A celebration of a serene haven under constant threat

Niall Williams and Christine Breen’s beguiling tale of the garden they constructed in their Co Clare cottage is clouded by personal setbacks and the looming spectre of a nearby wind farm

Holding Her Breath: A deep dive into the psyche of a troubled young woman

Eimear Ryan’s debut novel is a compelling tale that oscillates between the contrasting worlds of high-performance sport and literature

Things I Have Withheld: Exploring the consequences of being where you are not wanted

Kei Miller’s new collection of essays is a compelling exploration of what it means to be a black man in the modern age

Whereabouts: A near-plotless story leaves an unforgettable aftertaste

Jhumpa Lahiri’s latest novel is superbly written and deeply meditative

Liberty Hall: Building a perfect postmodern beast in 1960s Dublin

Michael O’Loughlin’s latest collection of prose and verse explores the creation of the capital’s tallest building from an original and unusual angle

In Spanish Trenches: A superb overview of Ireland’s role in a vicious conflict

Psychiatrist in the Chair: Peeling back the many layers of a singular man

A new biography of the brilliant Anthony Clare does justice to his extraordinary life and work

Exiles: A master of his craft conjures up the emigrant experience

Dónall Mac Amhlaigh’s reissued 1986 ‘novel’ is instead three spellbinding stories for the price of one

A Thousand Moons: Barry skilfully reclaims a family’s hidden history

The Irish author’s latest novel is set in an America still rebuilding itself after the Civil War

Quiet Tide: Haunting story of a forgotten botanist

Marianne Lee’s debut novel is an exemplary act of reclamation and literary ventriloquism

Travel: On course for greatness

Portrush may have hosted the British Open Championship last year, but Fermanagh’s Lough Erne is to the fore when it comes to golf in a spectacular setting

Raise a glass to a heartfelt and impressive debut novel

Anne Griffin's When All Is Said is an emotive novel about loves that are no less true for having never been expressed, and 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan is a complicated and realistic character, shaped by his past

Haverty explores her poetic side to beguiling effect

Haverty’s debut collection of poems, The Beauty of the Moon, appeared in 1999. Now comes this superbly understated second collection, 19 years in the making

An uncomfortable look at how Celtic culture was co-opted

When Harvard University sent an archaeological mission to Ireland in the 1930s to determine Ireland’s racial and cultural heritage, it was socially and politically important to rich Irish Americans