The Royal Irish Academy in association with the Department of Foreign Affairs has announced the six shortlisted titles for the 2026 Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction.

The €10,000 award, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, will be presented in October to the author of the best non-fiction book habitually living on the island of Ireland. The winning author will deliver the Michel Déon Lecture in France in 2027.

The shortlist is:

• Dublin’s Stained Glass. A guide to the finest twentieth-century windows by David Caron (Four Courts Press)
• Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals by Maurice J Casey (Footnote Press)
• Land Is All That Matters: The Struggle That Shaped Irish History by Myles Dungan (Head of Zeus)
• Monasticism in Ireland, AD 900-1250 by Edel Bhreathnach (Four Courts Press)
• Rory O’Connor: To Defend the Republic by Gerard Shannon (Merrion Press)
• The Celtic World: a history by John Waddell (Four Courts Press)

Prof Hastings Donnan, chair of the judging panel, said: “We received a large number of nominations this year and the vibrancy of non-fiction writing in Ireland at present is clear from the outstanding quality of the titles on the Michel Déon shortlist.”

Prof Daniel Carey, President of the Royal Irish Academy, said: “We are delighted to announce this year’s shortlist, which showcases an exceptional range of voices and perspectives in Irish non-fiction writing. Being shortlisted for this highly competitive prize is a significant achievement; we congratulate the authors and commend their outstanding contribution to Ireland’s literary landscape.”

Irish Times books coverage this weekend

In The Irish Times this Saturday, Dave Eggers tells Nadine O’Regan about his new novel, Contrapposto; Sarah Moss writes about why Little House on the Prairie makes for uneasy reading as an adult; and Henrietta McKervey about the importance of friendships in life and in literature and how the late Gordon Snell inspired her; and there is a Q&A with Graeme Armstrong about his new novel, Raveheart, and his award-winning debut novel, The Young Team.

Reviews are Oliver Farry on The Dark Side of France by Enda O’Doherty & Far-right France by Victor Mallet; Tony Clayton-Lea on the best new music books; Brian Cliff and Elizabeth Mannion on the best new crime fiction; Adam Wyeth on Soul Magic: A Century of Psychotherapy by Steve Ayan; Guy Hedgecoe on ETA and the “Basque Problem”: The View from London (1968-93) by Niall Cullen; NJ McGarrigle on Killing Maradona by David Arrowsmith; Harry Higgins on The Cornucopia Story: A Tale of Love and Loss, Hope and Healing Deirdre O’Mara McCafferty; Andrew Lynch on The Response by David Shukman; Helena Mulkerns on Country People by Daniel Mason; Helen Cullen on Trouble Was by Charlotte Edwards; Martina Evans on Seamus Heaney’s Translations; Adrian Frazier on Slightly Magical Irish Poetry and the Long 1990s by Lucy McDiarmid; and Daniel Mulhall on Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

Gerard Manley Hopkins festival

The Gerard Manley Hopkins International Literary Festival will run from July 24th-30th in Newbridge College Theatre, Co Kildare. As well as lectures on Hopkins in a broad context with speakers from China, Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy, USA, France, Canada and Ireland, the festival will also provide a classical music concert with Swedish pianist Hans Pålsson on Friday, July 25th at 8pm. An art exhibition runs the whole week with national and international artists and a Poetry Ireland Evening supported by Poetry Ireland featuring Dermot Bolger, Donald Gardner and Desmond Egan. Admission to the classical concert is €35 (€22 concessions). The art exhibition and Poetry Ireland event are both free. The classical concert takes place in Newbridge College Theatre, Newbridge, Kildare; the Poetry Ireland Evening takes place in The Walker Building, Newbridge College, Newbridge, Kildare.

For more information visit gerardmanleyhopkins.org or contact 045 433613, abbottviv@gmail.com

Clifden Arts Festival

Literature has long been one of the cornerstones of Clifden Arts Festival, which returns to Connemara from September 17th – 27th under the theme OPEN: A Festival of Welcome, Encounter and Possibility.

This year’s programme brings together an exceptional mix of novelists, poets, historians and public thinkers whose work explores many of the defining issues of our time. Elaine Feeney joins Paula Shields in conversation, while broadcaster Emma Dabiri and writer Eva Kenny discuss language, identity and the experience of learning Irish as adults. Poet and editor Cathy Galvin, whose latest collection Ethnology: A Love Song for Connemara, celebrates the landscape and spirit of the West, appears with Irish-language poet and translator Simon Ó Faoláin. Architect John Tuomey discusses his memoir, Middle Quarter, while Frances Fitzgerald, Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, Fintan Drury and Donnacha Ó Beacháin bring history, politics and contemporary affairs into a programme that continues Clifden’s tradition of lively debate, thoughtful conversation and literary discovery. For more information visit clifdenartsfestival.ie

The European Union in 12 Objects

Former Irish ambassador Bobby McDonagh‘s new book, The European Union in 12 Objects, aims to explain the European Union in an original and engaging way; and to illustrate that, far from being boring, it is immensely exciting.

He explains the EU’s complexity by reference to 12 everyday objects. A weighing scales, for example, explains how compromise works in Europe. A mirror explores the subtle blending of national and European identity. A dictionary underlines that, in a world of fake news and alternative facts, words still matter in the EU. A Persian rug is chosen because such rugs contain a deliberate flaw – only Allah can make something that’s perfect.

The book is aimed at anyone interested in understanding better what the EU is and how it works, especially in the context of Ireland’s current EU presidency. It could be useful both in universities and for school students from transition year upwards. 

The book is available free, in both digital and hard copy form, from the website of the European Commission Representation in Ireland. Although supported by the Commission and the Institute of International and European Affairs, the contents of the book are entirely his own.

Jacqueline Rose awarded PEN Pinter Prize

English PEN has awarded writer, academic and feminist critic Jacqueline Rose the PEN Pinter Prize 2026. Rose will receive the award at a ceremony at the British Library on October 8th, where she will deliver an address. Tickets are available here.

Rose said: “I never imagined I would join such illustrious and courageous company, those who in past years have received this prize, and the PEN movement in its ongoing struggle against oppression and injustice. I am honoured to join their ranks at a time when racial and sexual violence, state torture, and daily violations of international humanitarian law, from Gaza to Ukraine and Sudan, cast their shadow across a shrinking planet.

“This prize will help me to speak out more boldly, and go some way to meet the self-reproach: Why has horror been given free rein? What more could I have done, and still do, to help create a fairer world?”

Rose was chosen by this year’s judges: Chair of English PEN Ruth Borthwick, playwright Tanika Gupta and writer and poet Will Harris.

Borthwick said: “Jacqueline Rose, in her role as one of our leading public intellectuals, has embraced the challenge that Harold Pinter set out in his 2005 Nobel speech: to be a citizen of the world, and to seek to define “the real truth of our lives” through “unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination”.

“As we face a world in crisis, on so many levels, we need Jacqueline Rose’s thoughtful and incisive analysis to cut through the suffocating layers of obfuscation and denial that beset us, so that we can understand our common humanity and make sense of the world we all inhabit.

“Her sheer range is formidable: on violence in its many forms – from abuse of women to state and political violence, as in her work on South Africa – to inequalities laid bare by the Covid-19 pandemic, the demonisation of mothers, and the history of feminism, to name just some of the many subjects about which she has written brilliantly. Jacqueline Rose is a dazzling winner of the PEN Pinter Prize 2026.”