Earlier this week, St Patrick’s Day set me thinking about contemporary Irish literature and musing on what I would recommend if I had to put together a sampling of fiction for someone wanting to get a taste of modern Irish writing. To make it more challenging, I decided to limit the list to five novels and this is what I came up with:

• Sebastian Barry: A Long Long Way
a poetic and sad novel about Ireland and the First World War.
• Colm Toibin: The Blackwater Lightship
a story about complex family relationships and reconciliation.
• Joseph O’Connor: Star of the Sea
  a historical novel set against the backdrop of the Irish famine.
• John Banville: The Sea
a literary novel about grief, beautifully written
• John Boyne : The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
a simple but powerful story about the Holocaust.

Inevitably, selections like this are subjective but each of these novels is quite different, each is beautifully written, and I am confident most readers will enjoy them.