Julia O Faolain: 6 books

Julia O'Faolain is one of the most important Irish writers of the past half-century. Under the Rose is a selection of short stories taken from her many celebrated collections.These are stories about families and relationships, religion and politics, new life and mortality, and their settings...

Her mother, who wrote vivid versions of old Irish folk tales, once said of the Irish Civil War: 'In those days... fear kept you from sleeping, but also from getting fat or bored.' Her father was Director of Publicity for the IRA during that savage conflict. He made bombs. A brilliant writer,...

Her story was this: she had been an orphan, her mother probably a whore. Brought up by nuns, she had lost her faith, found another, fought for it and been imprisoned. This was inexact but serviceable. On the twelfth day of her hunger strike, Maggy is unable to tell the difference between what...

1878: Pope Pius IX dies, after a misguided papacy that has stamped out liberalism, centralized papal power and witnessed the Pope's declaration of Infallibility. The Judas Cloth is told from the standpoint of Pius's son Nicola Santi, an orphan unaware of his scandalous paternity, who becomes a priest...

'I am hungry for your presence. I hanker for the great blaze of your glance which when you turn it on me, will burn out the husk of my body and draw my soul to you.'Julia O'Faolian's second novel, first published in 1973, offers a rich, vivid portrait of the political and religious turmoil...

'Entertaining and rich in comedy . . . gripping and moving.' William TrevorSister Judith Clancy is told that she must leave the protection of her convent and return to her family. So begins the unravelling of community ties which form this brilliant and devastating story of human and political...