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Happy Ever After: Marian Keyes
For centuries, romance fiction by Irish writers from Lady Morgan to Marian Keyes has told the story of characters in love. Yet romance remains a target for public condemnation and critical contempt, in part because these popular novels have been written largely by and for women. In summer 2025, the Museum of Literature Ireland launched the exhibition Happy Ever After: Falling in Love with Irish Romance Fiction to showcase the unique character of Irish romance fiction.In this series of interviews, Prof. Paige Reynolds (College of the Holy Cross) speaks with Irish writers who focus on romance in their fiction. The conversations reveal that the term “romance fiction” remains a vexed one. They also confirm that this genre, which promises the familiar satisfaction of a happy ending, valuably introduces – and sometimes forecasts – revolutionary personal and social changes. By featuring characters who overcome internal and external barriers to happiness, Irish romance fiction voices aspirations for personal fulfillment and a better society.In the first episode of the series, we feature Irish writer Marian Keyes, an award-winning novelist and essayist, whose books have sold over 40 million copies worldwide and been translated into 36 languages. Her novels centered on the Walsh family, and its five sisters, recently has been adapted into a television series The Walsh Sisters. In this in-depth interview, Keyes and Reynolds discuss a range of topics from Keyes’ canny use of the flashback to her strategies for writing novels linked in a series.
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The Dedalus Lecture: Naoise Dolan
The 2025 Dedalus Lecture, an annual lecture held at MoLI on Bloomsday, 16 June, was delivered by the novelist, essayist and critic Naoise Dolan. In her lecture, titled ‘The Exophonic Ulysses’, Dolan will wove insights about multilingualism with an understanding of Joyce as a linguist – his love of Italian, French and Latin, and his more fraught relationship with Irish, before offering a broader reflection on adventures in multilingual writing.2Naoise Dolan is an Irish writer born in Dublin. She studied at Trinity College, followed by a master's in Victorian literature at Oxford. She writes fiction, essays, criticism and features for publications including the London Review of Books, the Guardian and Vogue. Dolan’s debut novel Exciting Times was published by W&N in the UK and by Ecco in the US in 2020, and became a Sunday Times bestseller, widely translated and optioned for TV. She has been shortlisted and longlisted for several prizes, including the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Dolan’s second novel The Happy Couple was published in 2024.
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Remembering Home
Running at MoLI across the weekend of 7-9 June 2024, HOMESWEETHOME was a multidisciplinary festival circling the theme of home. Taking place across the museum’s exhibitions and historic house, and with programmes designed for all ages, the festival will explore new perspectives on the central question of ‘What is home?’ through talks, discussion, performances, music, workshops, food, and more.In the festival’s opening event, titled Remembering Home, writer and documentary maker Manchán Magan led a conversation reflecting on memory and home, featuring poet Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, writer Melatu Uche Okorie and fiddle player Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh.HOMESWEETHOME was presented as part of ULYSSES European Odyssey, an epic project across 18 cities producing artistic responses to social and cultural themes identified in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Find out more at ulysseseurope.eu
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Words on the Waves
The Museum of Literature Ireland celebrated the relaunch RadioMoLI with a special event held at the museum on 25 September 2025.A vast and ever-growing digital archive for Irish literature, RadioMoLI features hundreds of audio recordings, video and images, all of which are free and accessible. First launched in February 2019 – several months before the museum opened its doors for the first time – the platform has been completely redesigned and rebuilt, to create an open and vital new home for literature on a national and international scale.RadioMoLI will continue to grow its collection, combining in-house productions and live broadcasts with media from partners in the Irish literature community. A vast archive, the collection includes podcasts, lectures, readings, discussion, commissioned films, digital exhibitions and much more. Highlights include the MoLI-produced Writer Presents series, in-depth interviews with contemporary writers such as Anne Enright and Frank McGuinness, or the museum’s long-running Past/Present/Pride series.To celebrate an exciting future for RadioMoLI, the museum hosted a rich evening of discussion, reading and song. Presented at the museum with both a live audience and streamed online, the event features musicians Julia Spanu (song) and Elsa Kelly (harp); writer Henrietta McKervey; and a panel discussion about the art of digital storytelling including Sinéad Clandillon (Head of Content, Ebow Digital), Jennifer Forde (producer of West Cork, Havana Helmet Club), Zoë Comyns (producer of The Prompt, Marconi and Me), David Douglas (MD, Ebow Digital) and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly (MoLI).Words on the Waves was presented in partnership with Ebow Digital.
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Announcing Books & Their Makers
Books and their Makers is a new podcast series on RadioMoLI exploring the stories behind the books we read. Featuring conversations with authors, editors, publishers, agents, and translators, and highlighting the many crucial behind-the-scenes activities and workers involved in bringing writing to publication. The series is presented by Dr Tim Groenland, School of English, Drama and Film, UCD, and supported by the project The Publishing Infrastructures of Contemporary Anglophone Literature, funded by Taighde Éireann / Research Ireland. MoLI’s digital programme is supported by Ebow, the Digital Agency.
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