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The final series of Downton Abbey begins on Sunday on ITV, and on Tuesday on TV3.

Billy O’Callaghan looks at two collections of short stories, one uneven and the other a series of enduring, almost timeless classics.

Tender, a novel about being a gay man in unwelcoming 1970s Ireland, was published just after the marriage equality amendment was passed. That was purely coincidental, Belinda McKeon assures Caroline O’Doherty.

Lisa McInerney has rattled the cage with her debut novel, The Glorious Heresies, an authentic portrayal of Cork City’s underclass, says Sue Leonard.

The Arts Council has published the full list of nominees for the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction.

HIGHLIGHT of the Cork International Short Story Festival (Sept 18-22) will be a reading by, and public interview with David Constantine, winner of the 2013 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award at Triskel Christchurch on Sept 22.

I’M standing in a Georgian building in Dublin, staring at a jar of honey.

Organisers of two candlelit vigils in New York City over the past two evenings have called for a boycott of travel to Ireland in light of Savita Halappanavar’s death.

Novelist Christine Dwyer Hickey won the top prize of €15,000 for her latest work, The Cold Eye of Heaven, at the 41st Listowel Writers’ Week, last night.

MASS MARKETFICTION

MASS MARKETFICTION

MASS MARKETFICTION

PLAYWRIGHT and novelist Belinda McKeon says she has learned most about health from her parents who brought her up on the family farm in Co Longford.

FLYING 3,000 miles to drown the shamrock, blurt out the cúpla focail and watch a St Patrick’s Day parade seems a strange way for an Irish holidaymaker to spend hundreds of euro.

Neil Jordan, Belinda McKeon, Alan Flynn and Sheila O'Flanagan were among the winners at this year's Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards.

POET Seamus Heaney has won a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to Irish literature.

Belinda McKeon tells Sue Leonard how she realised she was getting free master-classes on how to be a novelist by interviewing writers for her work.