Martina Devlin
@martinadevlinbooks
Book lover, novelist, reader, newspaper columnist, occasional lecturer in literature, Irish www.martinadevlin.ie
August is WITMonth aka Women in Translation. I’m reading Brandy Sour by Constantia Soteriou translated by Linos Gavrilis. A hotel setting used to explore history, political conflict, social change in Cyprus. 🙏 to Louisa @ravenbooks.bsky.social for recommending, I always listen to booksellers! #books
Dropped in a proof copy of my new Mary Shelley novel Glorious Monsters to Louisa @ravenbooks.bsky.social. Due out Oct 1 with @lilliputpress.bsky.social. As regulars there will know, Louisa #reads. And once more with feeling: Louisa reads!
One of the best things about train travel is a chance to read. Off to @wcorklitfest for #book events… but first, Ann Patchett #wclt26
#Bloomsday celebrations in Dublin where Edwardian fashions have a moment once a year. Yes, fair enough, so does Joyce’s opus #Ulysses. Here I am with Antony Farrell of Lilliput Press
Wonderful pieces of #sculpture on show at the #RHA exhibition Dublin. Left John Behan’s Morrigan, right Gareth Shiels’s Venus #art
I’m in Westport library Tuesday June 23 talking about some of the extraordinary women who have influenced my fiction. Join me if you can.
Extract from my column in today’s Irish Independent about how scammers are using AI to target the unwary. Happening in all sorts of industries and professions. Link to full piece here www.independent.ie/opinion/comm...
Gloating to myself at sneaking in a reference to our cat Chekhov in today’s Irish Independent column on renewables.
Protesters from all-Ireland group Rural Ireland Against Fox Hunting gathered outside Dáil today urging politicians to ban this “barbaric” practise. Some dressedas suffragettes to highlight how 3 in 4 people feel ignored on issue.Polls show 77pc majority oppose fox hunting @banfoxhunting.bsky.social
Powerful, immersive version of Arthur Miller classic The Crucible which stands the test of time running @thegaiety.bsky.social - a reminder that every age has its witches or scapegoats.
“We sit over the fire wearing for the post - the cream of the day, I think,” Virginia Woolf wrote in a letter one January day. I still wait hopefully for the #post. Presumably I’m in a minority. But, oh,the pleasure of an unexpected, handwritten missive.
Great to see the Brontes’ Irish dimension explored in this well-researched piece in yesterday’s Sunday Times.
Talked about St Brigid and the wonderful writer Kate O’Brien (there was a connection but you had to be there to follow it) with UL’s Tina O’Toole and UAH’s Marisol Morales at an Irish Embassy event in Madrid tonight. Added bonus: another excuse to wear my St Brigid’s cross brooch.
It’s not just Irish farners who don’t like the Mercosur trade deal. A protest by Spanish farmers is under way currently in Madrid.
Just spotted several shelves of Ukrainian #books for adults and kids in the fabulous @ravenbooks.bsky.social
Excited to sign again with @lilliputpress.bsky.social for my next novel Glorious Monsters. Features Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame, set in 1819 … and Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley are also characters. Out Sep 2026. Here’s me with Antony Farrell of Lilliput #books #histfic
World’s smallest car? Driven through traffic in Mexico City. My jaw was on the pavement…
Saw lots of Magi figures in Mexico recently but this combination is my favourite. One of the Three Wise Men is a woman. How subversive is that!
Ukrainian flags flew in Ireland - including here on Dalkey Castle - for President Zelensky’s visit.
Today’s reading, a classic WWI memoir. Brittain goes from enthusiasm to disillusionment to conviction that war is futile.
Shivaun O’Casey, daughter of legendary playwright Sean O’Casey, @abbeytheatre.bsky.social launches her memoir Next Year Will Be A Good One. She conjured up Lady Gregory, Samuel Beckett … and Barbra Streisand.
Congratulations to Ferdia Lennon who won the 2025 Rooney Prize for his debut novel Glorious Exploits. It’s set in 5th BC Sicily, when captured Athenians stage 2 Euripides plays for food. The judges loved the book (I know because I was one). Ferdia is pictured here @tcd.bluesky.social with his mum.
Just popped into @ravenbooks.bsky.social for a chat with owner Louisa who always gives great #book recommendations
Magnificent Picasso exhibition @nationalgalleryirl.bsky.social
New paperback edition of my novel Charlotte about Charlotte Bronte has just landed in bookshops. I popped into Gutter Bookshop for a gloat. As you do.
My heartbeat’s going pitter-patter with excitement #SeamusHeaney
A must: exhibition in London on the great Jean Rhys, author of Jane Eyre prequel The Wide Sargasso Sea. Her voice was "lyrical, laconic+knowing, describing what it meant to be a woman in exile at whim of powerful men". #postcolonialism #Brontes www.michaelwerner.com/exhibitions/...