On Senior Cycle Reform in English
Comments on the planned Senior Cycle changes in English in Ireland.
Read MoreVivian Gornick on J.L. Carr
Vivian Gornick’s Unfinished Business includes a chapter on J.L. Carr’s beautiful short novel A Month in the Country, as she reconsiders it after reading Pat Barker’s Regeneration.
Read MoreSonia Thompson on Ron Berger
Sonia Thompson’s short ‘In Action’ book on Ron Berger’s An Ethic of Excellence is concise, practical and helpful for teachers and school leaders at any level.
Read MoreToni Morrison's 'Desdemona'
Toni Morrison’s play Desdemona gives voice to the silenced women from Shakespeare’s story.
Read MoreAn English Meet, Thursday 5th May 2022
A sharing opportunity for teachers of Leaving Certificate English, May 2022.
Read MoreBernard MacLaverty's 'Blank Pages'
In his late 70s, Bernard MacLaverty has given us a marvellous collection of short stories of the highest quality, in the ironically-titled Blank Pages.
Read MoreToni Morrison's 'Recitatif'
Toni Morrison only published one short story, ‘Recitatif’. It is now published for the first time in book form, with a brilliant introductory essay by Zadie Smith.
Read MoreZadie Smith's 'The Wife of Willesden'
Zadie Smith’s The Wife of Willesden is a lively and enjoyable drama, bringing Chaucer’s Wife of Bath into the twenty-first century.
Read MoreThinking about 'Othello'
10 revision exercises on quotations in Othello. They are designed for pair-work 15-minute sessions in class, but work perfectly well for individuals. The purpose is to generate ideas and debate about the play, and they should only be done once you know the play well, particularly as retrieval practice.
Read MoreKiernan Ryan on 'Othello'
Kiernan Ryan’s new overview of Shakespeare’s tragic oeuvre is magisterial and consistently interesting. Here are some notes on his chapter on Othello.
Read MoreJoel Coen's 'Macbeth'
Joel Cohen’s visually-stunning version of Macbeth is a consistently interesting addition to the conversation we have been having with this play for hundreds of years.
Read MoreJames Harpur's 'The Examined Life'
James Harpur’s collection The Examined Life is a highly pleasurable sequence of poems recalling his time in an English boarding school in the 1970s.
Read MoreMy Books of 2021
My choice of the best new (and some old) books I read this year.
Read MoreBooks of the Year lists, 2021
My annual summary of highlights of Books of the Year features in the media.
Read MoreWilliam Wall's 'Smugglers in the Underground Hug Trade'
William Wall’s new book of poems tells the story of a strange year, moving from Italy just before the pandemic started to life in County Cork, culminating in Christmas 2020.
Read MoreLeaving Certificate resources 2022
Links to helpful resources for teachers and candidates heading towards the 2022 Leaving Certificate in English.
Read More'Afterlives' by Abdulrazak Gurnah
The most recent novel by the 2021 Nobel Laureate, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Afterlives (2020), entirely justifies the Nobel Committee’s choice.
Read MoreDeborah Levy's Living Autobiography
Across the three terrific books which make up her ‘living autobiography’, Deborah Levy opens up to us the mind of a writer with honesty, sharp humour and enormous skill.
Read MoreOn The Fortnightly
A few notes on The Fortnightly newsletter.
Read MoreClaire Keegan's 'Small Things Like These'
Claire Keegan’s marvellous Small Things Like Us is a deeply moving portrait of a man’s life in mid-1980s Ireland, a superb follow-up to her masterpiece of a long short story, Foster.
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