Dublin Tales

Dublin is one of the world's great literary cities, immortalized in works by some of the most celebrated international authors. It is a city of warmth and character, which combines the richest of histories with a vibrant contemporary edge, and which welcomes millions of people to its streets each year. In addition to being Ireland's capital city, Dublin is a city with a proud European identity and with long-established, dynamic links with the rest of the world. Dublin Tales comprises an exciting selection of stories from across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries which are illustrative of this.

The stories in Dublin Tales are variously vibrant, evocative, humorous, and diverse, and engage in different ways with Dublin's history, its culture, its cityscape, and its people. It includes stories by writers who are intimately associated with the city (James Joyce and Brendan Behan), as well as by some of the most acclaimed Irish authors of the twentieth century (Elizabeth Bowen, Liam O'Flaherty, William Trevor, John McGahern, and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne). Less familiar authors are also included, as are specially commissioned stories from some of the most talented younger writers writing today (Caitriona Lally, Kevin Power, and Melatu Uche Okorie). Dublin Tales also includes bilingual versions of two stories which were originally written in the Irish language by Dara Ó Conaola and Caitlín Nic Íomhair, which have been specially translated into English for this startlingly original new book.

Helen Constantine

Eve Patten is Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and Professor of English at Trinity College, Dublin, where she is a Fellow. A scholar in nineteenth and twentieth-century literature and cultural history, she worked for the British Council before joining Trinity as a lecturer in 1996. She specializes in the modern Irish and British novel and was a regular reviewer of new Irish fiction for the Irish Times and other publications for several years.


Paul Delaney is Associate Professor in the School of English, and a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. He is a scholar of twentieth-century and contemporary Irish writing, with particular focus in post-independence Irish literary culture and short fiction. He has written widely on Irish literature in peer-reviewed journals and publications. He joined Trinity as a lecturer in 2001, having completed his PhD at the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Research at the University of Kent (Canterbury) where he was a Chevening Scholar.

Editors' Introduction
1. Mammy, George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright)
2. Two Gallants, James Joyce
3. The Sniper, Liam O'Flaherty
4. Unwelcome Idea, Elizabeth Bowen
5. A Rhinoceros, Some Ladies, and a Horse, James Stephens
6. The Confirmation Suit, Brendan Behan
7. Sierra Leone, John McGahern
8. Four Green Fields, Val Mulkerns
9. I nGleic (In a Pickle), Dara Ó Conaola
10. Two More Gallants, William Trevor
11. The Black Church, Mary O'Donnell
12. Miss Moffat Goes to Town, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
13. Emigrant, Mirsad Ibisevic
14. Cíocras (Relentless), Caitlín Nic Íomhair
15. Arrival, Melatu Uche Okorie
16. Catastrophe, Kevin Power
17. Tramlines, Caitriona Lally