There is a palpable energy in women’s writing in Ireland at the moment, and this year has seen some remarkable debuts. Two unique new voices in fiction are Hilary Fannin and Elaine Feeney. Hilary Fannin’s novel The Weight of Love, an intimate and moving account of the intricacies of marriage, the ghost of a former passion, and the myriad ways in which we can love and be loved, was described by Roddy Doyle as “an absorbing, cleverly structured, yet very human novel.” Elaine Feeney’s stunning debut As You Were follows a tough young property developer with a difficult past and a terrifying secret, as she finds herself desperately ill in hospital and suddenly reliant on the

kindness of strangers. Feeney described it as “a book born out of the trust and the chats women have in the most peculiar of spaces, their eagerness to open up and understand each other, and it critiques the patriarchal system within Irish institutions that has silenced their voices, through fear, for many decades.”

Hilary Fannin’s plays have been performed in Ireland, London, Europe and North America. She writes a weekly column for the Irish Times, winning Irish Columnist of the Year in 2019. Her memoir, Hopscotch, was published to critical acclaim in 2015. Elaine Feeney has published three collections of poetry; Where’s Katie? The Radio was Gospel, and Rise. Her work has been widely published and anthologised in Poetry Review, The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Copper Nickel, Stonecutter Journal and others.

Heed the rallying cry and don’t miss Hilary Fannin and Elaine Feeney in conversation with journalist and broadcaster Edel Coffey.

Rallying Cry: New Voices in Irish Fiction with Hilary Fannin and Elaine Feeney