The 87 best literary novels from Ireland

Each point of light is one of the 87, placed by how hard it is to read. The brighter, the higher it ranks. The dotted line is one way up.

87
books
669
hours to read
4
free to read here
Start low: Nora WebsterSee all 87
Easy7 booksModerate32 booksChallenging33 booksDifficult13 booksVery Difficult2 books

Tap a light to see its book · tap a cluster to keep only its books

No. 1 of 87

Ulysses

James Joyce · 1922

Difficulty 89/10047 hours

Open the book
SortAs rankedEasiest firstShortest first
Readable here · 4

Hours at an average pace

Showing 87 books

About 669 hours for 86 of 87 books with measured lengths. Estimates use 250 words a minute, adjusted for each book's difficulty. At 2 hours a day, about 335 days for those books.

1–10 · 166 hours

  1. No. 1 on this list. Ulysses

    James Joyce · 1922

    Very Difficult47 hours

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library

    Ulysses appears on 1,017 university syllabi (75th percentile, Open Syllabus Project) and features on the Modern Library's #1 Best Novels list, Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, TIME's All-TIME 100 Novels, and the BBC Big Read. Wikipedia covers it in 36 languages. Published in Everyman's Library and Penguin Classics, it has maintained continuous academic circulation since its 1934 US publication.

    Read now

  2. No. 2 on this list. Waiting for Godot

    Samuel Beckett · 1953

    Difficult2.4 hours

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Waiting for Godot appears on virtually every comparative literature, modern drama, and theater studies syllabus worldwide, and is listed in Open Syllabus's Top 500 Literature titles. The Wikipedia article exists in 68 languages, and the play has been continuously performed since its 1953 Paris premiere. Le Monde named it among the 100 Books of the Century. It is as canonical as any play written after Shakespeare.

    Start this book

  3. No. 3 on this list. Finnegans Wake

    James Joyce · 1939

    Very Difficult44 hours

    Finnegans Wake appears on 108 university syllabi (Open Syllabus, 50th percentile) and holds a Wikipedia article in 39 languages. It is listed on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels and published by NYRB Classics. Syllabus presence is lower than Ulysses because the book is taught almost exclusively in graduate Joyce seminars and advanced modernism courses — its difficulty makes undergraduate adoption rare.

    Start this book

  4. No. 4 on this list. Dubliners

    James Joyce · 1914

    Difficult8.1 hours

    Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

    Dubliners appears on 1,771 university syllabi according to the Open Syllabus Project (81st percentile), making it a fixture in modernist literature and short fiction courses worldwide. Its Wikipedia article spans 43 languages, and prestige editions from Penguin Classics and NYRB Classics attest to its sustained standing as essential reading. Every serious curriculum in Irish, British, or modernist literature includes it.

    Read now

  5. Happy Days anchors modernist and postmodern drama syllabi internationally alongside Waiting for Godot and Endgame. It is taught in theatre, English literature, and philosophy programs across Europe and North America. Wikipedia covers it in over 40 languages. It is among the most-assigned Beckett plays and appears on virtually every postwar drama reading list.

    Start this book

  6. No. 6 on this list. Gulliver's Travels

    Jonathan Swift · 1726

    Challenging10 hours

    Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council, Hungarian literature curriculum (magyar nyelv és irodalom) (Hungary)

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World

    Swift shrinks his protagonist to six inches in Lilliput, inflates him to a giant in Brobdingnag, then deposits him among rational horses who regard humans as vermin. No other satire in English has so thoroughly weaponized scale and perspective to indict politics, science, and the species itself.

    Read now

  7. No. 7 on this list. The Unnamable

    Samuel Beckett · 1953

    Difficult27 hours

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library

    The Unnamable is taught in advanced modernism, postmodernism, and philosophy-of-language courses at universities worldwide, though less universally than Waiting for Godot. It anchors the Beckett Trilogy, which is among the canonical texts of twentieth-century literature in English and French. The Wikipedia and syllabus data signals appear underreported for this work.

    Start this book

  8. No. 8 on this list. The Picture of Dorian Gray

    Oscar Wilde

    Challenging8 hours

    Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), Pearson Edexcel GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

    Included in: Oxford World's Classics

    The Picture of Dorian Gray is standard reading in Victorian literature and aesthetic movement curricula worldwide. Though the database shows only 16 syllabus appearances due to limited data collection, the novel appears on virtually every canonical survey of English literature and has been in continuous print since 1890. It anchors discussions of aestheticism, decadence, and Victorian moral philosophy in university courses across the globe.

    Start this book

  9. No syllabus or Wikipedia-language data turned up in this database pass, but The Importance of Being Earnest is a fixture of English-language secondary and university curricula worldwide and one of the most frequently produced plays in the English repertoire, with multiple film adaptations (1952, 1992, 2002) keeping it in general circulation. That level of sustained institutional presence puts it near To Kill a Mockingbird's curriculum-fixture status, even without syllabus counts to confirm it directly.

    Start this book

  10. No. 10 on this list. Dracula

    Bram Stoker · 1897

    Moderate11 hours

    Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council, Leaving Certificate English – NCCA / State Examinations Commission (Ireland), OCR GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

    Included in: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade

    Among the most famous novels ever written. Created the modern vampire and generated endless adaptation.

    Read now
11–20 · 88 hours

  1. No. 11 on this list. At Swim-Two-Birds · Flann O'Brien · 1939

    Appears on 93 university syllabi (49th percentile in Open Syllabus), placing it in the mid-range of taught texts — well behind Joyce or Beckett but firmly established in Irish literature and postmodern fiction courses. Listed on TIME's All-TIME 100 Novels and published by NYRB Classics. Wikipedia coverage in only 5 languages suggests limited reach outside English-speaking literary circles.

    Challenging6.1 hours

    Start this book

  2. No. 12 on this list. A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing · Eimear McBride · 2014

    Eimear McBride's novel tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother who is living with the after effects of a brain tunour. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and sensual urges of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation. Eimear McBride's debut tells, with astonishing insight and in brutal detail, the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation. Touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity and mordant wit. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny - and alarming. It is a book you will never forget. The story is about a young woman's relationship with her older brother, who suffers a brain tumour in childhood that later returns when he is a young man. It spans roughly 20 years and is set largely in an isolated farming community in the west of Ireland at a time when the Catholic Church dominated every facet of a person's life. The first thing that strikes you about the novel is the prose style, which ignores all the usual conventions about use of the English language and quite brilliantly furrows its own unique groove. While it sputters along in fits and starts using half-formed sentences, incorrect grammar and isolated words, there are enough bursts of fluid and lucid writing to orientate the reader.

    Challenging5.6 hours

    Start this book

  3. No. 13 on this list. The Country Girls · Edna O'Brien · 1960

    A landmark of Irish literature and a foundational text for the frank depiction of women's experience. Widely taught and discussed.

    Difficult5.9 hours

    Start this book

  4. No. 14 on this list. The Black Prince · Iris Murdoch · 1973

    The Black Prince ranks among Murdoch's most celebrated novels and occupies an established position in postwar British fiction. It receives consistent inclusion in academic curricula and authoritative literary histories, though not at the absolute summit of canonical achievement.

    Challenging9.7 hours

    Start this book

  5. No. 15 on this list. The Sea, The Sea · Iris Murdoch · 1978

    Winner of the Booker Prize in 1978 and widely regarded as one of Iris Murdoch's finest novels. Wikipedia articles exist in 9 languages. While not as universally assigned as postwar American canon fixtures, it appears regularly in British literature and philosophy-and-fiction courses.

    Difficult29 hours

    Start this book

  6. No. 16 on this list. The Complete Illustrated Works of Oscar Wilde · Oscar Wilde · 1908

    Wilde's major works are taught widely in English literature courses, though this illustrated collection is an edition rather than a single canonical text. The author's central works lift it into the established range.

    Moderate5.5 hours

    Start this book

  7. No. 17 on this list. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold · John le Carré · 1963

    Alec Leamas runs a network of agents in East Berlin until they are systematically killed, ending with his best man shot climbing the Wall. British Intelligence brings him home and offers a new mission: pose as a defector, a drunk, a broken man. The plan works too well. Le Carré strips the spy novel of its glamour, replacing Bond's martinis with Leamas's cheap whiskey and casual violence. The Cold War here is a moral void where both sides use the same methods and discard the same people. The ending is devastating not because of what happens but because of what it reveals about the institutions Leamas has served.

    Challenging5.6 hours

    Start this book

  8. No. 18 on this list. A Tale of a Tub · Jonathan Swift · 1704

    A Tale of a Tub is a fixture of Augustan-satire and 18th-century literature syllabi, though it appears far less often than Swift's own Gulliver's Travels on general reading lists. No syllabus or Wikipedia-language data was returned for this work, so the score rests on its established place in period-literature curricula rather than mass-market visibility.

    Difficult5.9 hours

    Start this book

  9. No. 19 on this list. The Death of the Heart · Elizabeth Bowen · 1938

    Ranked 84th on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels and included on TIME's All-TIME 100 Novels, with Wikipedia articles in 7 languages. It is the Bowen novel most often taught in courses on British and Irish fiction between the wars.

    Difficult13 hours

    Start this book

  10. No. 20 on this list. Carmilla · Sheridan Le Fanu · 1872

    Carmilla is a fixture in Gothic literature and vampire fiction courses, recognized as the foundational pre-Dracula vampire text and a landmark of Victorian horror. Its Wikipedia article spans 40+ languages, and it appears regularly on 'essential horror' and 'Gothic fiction' reading lists. Less broadly canonical than Frankenstein or Dracula but firmly established within the Gothic literary tradition.

    Challenging2.2 hours

    Start this book
21–30 · 81 hours

  1. No. 21 on this list. Under the Net · Iris Murdoch · 1954

    Ranked 95th on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, included on TIME's All-TIME 100 Novels, and taught on 141 university syllabi (54th percentile). It is the Murdoch novel most often assigned in courses on postwar British fiction.

    Challenging7.8 hours

    Start this book

  2. No. 22 on this list. The Heat of the Day · Elizabeth Bowen · 1948

    Stella Rodney works for British intelligence in wartime London, living with the particular alertness of a city that may be bombed tonight and probably will not be bombed tonight. Then a man named Harrison appears at a concert and offers her a deal: he will suppress evidence that her lover, Robert Kelway, is passing secrets to the Germans—if Stella sleeps with Harrison instead. What follows is not a thriller. Elizabeth Bowen uses the architecture of espionage to examine something harder to name: how people maintain the fiction of knowing who they love, and why, when the bombs have already stripped so much else away. The prose is Jamesian in its density—sentences that circle their subjects, speakers who say precisely what they do not mean—and the bomb-damaged London streets carry the weight of a social order losing its grip. Robert's guilt or innocence remains genuinely uncertain; what Bowen illuminates instead is the grammar of complicity, the way loyalty and self-deception share a syntax. A novel that rewards rereading more than reading, and reading more than most novels do.

    Difficult13 hours

    Start this book

  3. No. 23 on this list. Foster · Claire Keegan · 2010

    Rapidly becoming a modern classic of Irish literature. The 2022 film adaptation brought wider attention, and it is increasingly taught in universities.

    Challenging1.1 hours

    Start this book

  4. No. 24 on this list. Checkout 19 · Claire-Louise Bennett · 2022

    Published in 2021, too recent for canonical assessment, though it appeared on New York Times '10 Best Books of the Year' and received significant critical attention. Bennett engages canonical modernist traditions (Woolf, Joyce) and the autofiction movement. The work's experimental ambition and metafictional sophistication position it as a serious literary achievement, but its ultimate place in the canon remains uncertain.

    Challenging5.8 hours

    Start this book

  5. No. 25 on this list. Let the Great World Spin · Colum McCann · 2009

    Let the Great World Spin is a celebrated contemporary novel that appears in reading groups and literary culture broadly but has limited measurable academic adoption. Zero syllabus appearances in the data despite its prize pedigree suggests it has not yet achieved the required reading status of older canonical works. It is widely known and respected but not yet institutionally entrenched in the way that genuinely canonical texts are.

    Moderate8.8 hours

    Start this book

  6. No. 26 on this list. The Master · Colm Tóibín · 2004

    In January 1895 Henry James anticipates the opening of his first play, Guy Domville, in London. The production fails, and he returns, chastened and humiliated, to his writing desk. The result is a string of masterpieces, but they are produced at a high personal cost. In The Master Colm Tóibín captures the exquisite anguish of a man who circulated in the grand parlours and palazzos of Europe, who was astonishingly vibrant and alive in his art, and yet whose attempts at intimacy inevitably failed him and those he tried to love. It is a powerful account of the hazards of putting the life of the mind before affairs of the heart.

    Challenging6.6 hours

    Start this book

  7. No. 27 on this list. Reading Turgenev · William Trevor · 1991

    Mary Louise Dallon, fearful of being trapped forever in her parents' cramped farmhouse, is too naive to resist the limited attractions of the nearby small town in the provincial Ireland of 1955. A hasty marriage leads to despair and desolation.

    Moderate3.4 hours

    Start this book

  8. No. 28 on this list. Milkman · Anna Burns · 2018

    Middle sister, eighteen, is being talked about. A man she neither likes nor encouraged — known to everyone only as the milkman — has taken an interest in her, appearing beside her on runs, slowing her pace, offering lifts she doesn't want, never once making a direct statement she could refuse. In the unnamed city during an unnamed conflict, where everyone is watched by state forces, paramilitary renouncers, and the community simultaneously, to be seen with the wrong person is to become that person. The rumour of their affair hardens into fact long before anything has happened. Anna Burns writes in a long, winding, conversational Irish sentence that spirals back on itself, qualifies its own conclusions, and detours into community history before returning — sometimes pages later — to the scene at hand. She names no one: not the narrator, not the milkman, not the city, not the conflict. Characters are 'maybe-boyfriend,' 'tablets girl,' 'real milkman,' 'first brother-in-law.' The effect is at once intimate and forensic: a specific life rendered as a type, a private terror made into a system. This is a novel about how a society teaches women to doubt their own perception. At eighteen, the narrator lacks 'the proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment.' Burns tracks, with precise comedy and slow-building dread, how that understanding arrives — and what it costs to have it.

    Difficult14 hours

    Start this book

  9. No. 29 on this list. Fools of Fortune · William Trevor · 1983

    Fools of Fortune won the 1983 Whitbread Prize and stands as one of William Trevor's major novels, widely taught in Irish literature courses and studied as a significant examination of the Anglo-Irish experience and the Troubles' long shadow. While perhaps less internationally prominent than Trevor's celebrated short stories, it occupies an important place in the Irish literary canon as a meditation on historical violence and memory.

    Moderate4.8 hours

    Start this book

  10. No. 30 on this list. A Perfect Spy · John le Carré · 1986

    Widely regarded by critics as le Carré's best novel and one of the finest English novels of the 1980s, but spy fiction carries lower academic penetration than literary fiction regardless of quality. It appears in specialist courses on the Cold War novel and contemporary British fiction, and is regularly cited on 'best of the century' lists (Time, Modern Library), but is not yet a university syllabus fixture at the level of mainstream literary canon.

    Challenging15 hours

    Start this book
31–40 · 56 hours

  1. No. 31 on this list. The Book of Evidence

    John Banville · 1989

  2. No. 32 on this list. The House in Paris

    Elizabeth Bowen · 1935

  3. No. 33 on this list. Amongst Women

    John McGahern · 1990

  4. No. 34 on this list. On Canaan's Side

    Sebastian Barry · 2011

  5. No. 35 on this list. The Green Road

    Anne Enright · 2015

  6. No. 36 on this list. The Butcher Boy

    Patrick McCabe · 1992

  7. No. 37 on this list. Felicia's Journey

    William Trevor · 1994

  8. No. 38 on this list. The Blackwater Lightship

    Colm Tóibín · 1999

  9. No. 39 on this list. Old God's Time

    Sebastian Barry · 2023

  10. No. 40 on this list. The Wren, The Wren

    Anne Enright · 2024

41–50 · 75 hours

  1. No. 41 on this list. History of the Rain

    Niall Williams · 2014

  2. No. 42 on this list. TransAtlantic

    Colum McCann · 2013

  3. No. 43 on this list. Days Without End

    Sebastian Barry · 2017

  4. No. 44 on this list. Breakfast on Pluto

    Patrick McCabe · 1998

  5. No. 45 on this list. The Old Jest

    Jennifer Johnston · 1979

  6. No. 46 on this list. Beautiful World, Where Are You

    Sally Rooney · 2021

  7. No. 47 on this list. Actress

    Anne Enright · 2020

  8. No. 48 on this list. The Spinning Heart

    Donal Ryan · 2013

    Taught in schools: Leaving Certificate English – NCCA / State Examinations Commission (Ireland)

  9. No. 49 on this list. Good Behaviour

    Molly Keane · 1981

  10. No. 50 on this list. Melmoth the Wanderer

    Charles Maturin · 1820

51–60 · 51 hours

  1. No. 51 on this list. Apeirogon

    Colum McCann · 2020

  2. No. 52 on this list. No Country for Young Men

    Julia O'Faolain · 1980

  3. No. 53 on this list. Nora Webster

    Colm Tóibín · 2014

  4. No. 54 on this list. Normal People

    Sally Rooney · 2018

  5. No. 55 on this list. In the Forest

    Edna O'Brien · 2002

  6. No. 56 on this list. The Ginger Man

    J.P. Donleavy · 1955

  7. No. 57 on this list. The Sea

    John Banville · 2005

  8. No. 58 on this list. From a Low and Quiet Sea

    Donal Ryan · 2018

  9. No. 59 on this list. Soldier Sailor

    Claire Kilroy · 2024

  10. No. 60 on this list. The Big Chapel

    Thomas Kilroy · 1971

61–70 · 57 hours

  1. No. 61 on this list. Prophet Song

    Paul Lynch · 2023

  2. No. 62 on this list. The Colony

    Audrey Magee · 2022

  3. No. 63 on this list. Trespasses

    Louise Kennedy · 2023

  4. No. 64 on this list. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

    Roddy Doyle · 1993

  5. No. 65 on this list. In the Woods

    Tana French · 2007

  6. No. 66 on this list. Night Boat to Tangier

    Kevin Barry · 2019

  7. No. 67 on this list. The Dog

    Joseph O'Neill

  8. No. 68 on this list. The Deposition of Father McGreevy

    Brian O'Doherty · 2000

  9. No. 69 on this list. Antarctica

    Claire Keegan · 2002

  10. No. 70 on this list. Shroud

    John Banville · 2002

71–80 · 67 hours

  1. No. 71 on this list. Netherland

    Joseph O'Neill

  2. No. 72 on this list. Small Things Like These

    Claire Keegan · 2022

    Taught in schools: Leaving Certificate English – NCCA / State Examinations Commission (Ireland)

  3. No. 73 on this list. Intermezzo

    Sally Rooney · 2024

  4. No. 74 on this list. The Rachel Incident

    Caroline O'Donoghue · 2023

  5. No. 75 on this list. The Van

    Roddy Doyle · 1991

  6. No. 76 on this list. Girl

    Edna O'Brien · 2019

  7. No. 77 on this list. Beatlebone

    Kevin Barry · 2015

  8. No. 78 on this list. City of Bohane

    Kevin Barry · 2013

  9. No. 79 on this list. Shadows on our Skin

    Jennifer Johnston · 1977

  10. No. 80 on this list. The Heart's Invisible Furies

    John Boyne · 2017

81–87 · 27 hours

  1. No. 81 on this list. Acts of Desperation

    Megan Nolan · 2021

  2. No. 82 on this list. The Book of Lost Things

    John Connolly · 2006

  3. No. 83 on this list. Exciting Times

    Naoise Dolan · 2020

  4. No. 84 on this list. The Happy Couple

    Naoise Dolan · 2023

  5. No. 85 on this list. Wild Houses

    Colin Barrett · 2024

  6. No. 86 on this list. This Is How You Remember It

    Catherine Prasifka · 2024

  7. No. 87 on this list. Bodies

    Christine Anne Foley · 2024

About this list

These 87 books are the highest-scoring eligible literary novels from Ireland currently in the catalogue. By literary regard, it opens with Ulysses, Waiting for Godot and Finnegans Wake. About 669 hours of reading in all, for the 86 with measured lengths. Difficulty runs from 52 to 63 out of 100 for the middle half of the list; the summit is Finnegans Wake at 94.

This list is ranked by literary regard, with a consistent order for equal scores. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. Catalogue coverage and the historical canon both limit what this list can represent, and genre labels are the catalogue’s own, gathered into broader kinds.

When we matched the Canons dataset to our catalogue in October 2026, our canonical-status scores rose with the number of school curricula, publisher series and lists in it that cite a work: the median score was 72 for books one such source cites, 84 at two, 88 at three, 92 at four and 93 at five or more. Prizes are left out of that count. Outside the state curricula, the dataset’s sources choose mostly from what has been translated into English or French, so it is a weaker check on other literatures. Source: Canons (Andrew Piper), CC BY 4.0

Questions people actually ask

What are the best literary novels from Ireland?
By literary regard, which weighs canonical status, critical standing and influence, Ulysses, Waiting for Godot, Finnegans Wake, Dubliners and Happy Days lead. ReadingRate ranks 87 such books, each with a difficulty score and a reading-time estimate.
Where should I start with literary novels from Ireland?
Start from difficulty, not from rank. The most approachable books on this list that still carry top literary regard are The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays by Oscar Wilde (about 6.9 hours), Happy Days by Samuel Beckett and Dracula by Bram Stoker.
How hard are literary novels from Ireland to read?
Most of this list sits between 52 and 63 on ReadingRate's 100-point difficulty scale, where 40 to 55 is moderate. The summit is Finnegans Wake at 94. Every entry carries its own score, so a reader can pick a great book at a difficulty they will finish.
How is this list ranked?
On literary-regard data: how canonically established a work is, its critical standing, and its influence on later writing. It is not a readers’ poll, which is why recent bestsellers rarely appear. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. A list that is not a genre list keeps to literature (fiction, poetry, drama and philosophy), with philosophy taking no more than one slot in five while there is literature left to rank; every list holds at most three works by one author.