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...

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...

'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,...

'Entertaining and rich in comedy . . . gripping and moving.' William Trevor Sister Judith Clancy is told that she must leave the protection of her convent and return to her family. So begins the unravelling...

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...

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. Her story was this: she had been an orphan, her mother probably...