The Dead Republic 2010

At the end of Oh, Play That Thing, the second volume of Roddy Doyle’s trilogy about Henry Smart, Henry, his leg severed in an accident with a railway boxcar, crawls into the Utah desert to die – only to be discovered by John Ford, who’s there shooting his latest Western. Ford recognises a fellow Irish rebel and determines to turn Henry’s story – a boy volunteer at the GPO in 1916, a hitman for Michael Collins, a republican legend – into a film. He appoints him ‘IRA consultant’ on his new production, The Quiet Man.

The Dead Republic opens in 1951. Henry is returning to Ireland for the first time since his escape in 1922. With him are the stars of Ford’s film, John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, and the famous director himself, ‘Pappy’, who in a series of intense, highly charged meetings has tried to suck the soul out of Henry and turn it into Hollywood gold-dust.

Ten years later Henry is in Dublin, working in Ratheen as a school caretaker, nicknamed ‘Hoppy Henry’ by the boys on account of his wooden leg. When he is caught in a bomb blast, that wooden leg gets left behind. He finds himself a hero: the old IRA veteran who’s lost his leg to a UVF bomb. Wheeled out by the Provos, Henry is to find he will have other uses too, when the peace process begins in deadly secrecy…

In three brilliant novels, A Star Called Henry, Oh, Play That Thing and The Dead Republic, Roddy Doyle has told the whole history of Ireland in the twentieth century. And in the person of his hero, he has created one of the great characters of modern fiction.

The Deportees 2008

For more than ten years Roddy Doyle has been writing stories for Metro Eireann, a newspaper started by, and aimed at, immigrants to Ireland. Each of the stories took a new slant on the immigrant experience, something of increasing relevance and importance in today’s Ireland. The stories range from Guess Who’s Coming For The Dinner, where a father who prides himself on his open-mindedness, is forced to confront his feelings when one of his daughters brings home ‘a black fella’, to a terrifying ghost story, The Pram, in which a Polish nanny grows impatient with her charges and decides – in a phrase she has learnt – to ‘scare them shitless’. Most of the stories are very funny – in 57 Percent Irish Ray Brady tries to devise a test of Irishness by measuring reactions to Robbie Keane’s goal against Germany in the 2002 World Cup, Riverdance and Danny Boy –others deeply moving. And best of all, in the title story itself, Jimmy Rabbitte, the man who formed The Commitments, decides it’s time to find a new band, and this time no White Irish need apply. Multicultural to a fault, The Deportees specialise not in soul music this time, but the songs of Woody Guthrie.

Paula Spencer 2006

When we first met Paula Spencer – in The Woman Who Walked into Doors – she was thirty-nine, recently widowed, an alcoholic struggling to hold her family together. Paula Spencer begins on the eve of Paula’s forty-eighth birthday. She hasn’t had a drink for four months and five days. Her youngest children, Jack and Leanne, are still living with her. They’re grand kids, but she worries about Leanne. Paula still works as a cleaner, but all the others doing the job now seem to come from Eastern Europe, and the checkout girls in the supermarket are Nigerian. You can get a cappuccino in the cafe, and her sister Carmel is thinking of buying a holiday home in Bulgaria. Paula’s got four grandchildren now; two of them are called Marcus and Sapphire. Reviewing The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Mary Gordon wrote: ‘It is the triumph of this novel that Mr Doyle – entirely without condescension – shows the inner life of this battered house-cleaner to be the same stuff as that of the heroes of the great novels of Europe.’ Her words hold true for this novel. Paula Spencer is brave, tenacious and very funny. The novel that bears her name is another triumph for Roddy Doyle.

Oh, Play That Thing 2004

It’s 1924, and New York is the centre of the universe. Henry Smart, on the run from Dublin, falls on his feet. He is a handsome man with a sandwich board, behind which he stashes hooch for the speakeasies of the Lower East Side. He catches the attention of the mobsters who run the district and soon there are eyes on his back and men in the shadows. It is time to leave, for another America…

Chicago is wild and new, and newest of all is the music, furious, wild, happy music played by a man with a trumpet and bleeding lips called Louis Armstrong. His music is everywhere, coming from every open door, every phonograph. But Armstrong is a prisoner of his colour; there are places a black man cannot go, things he cannot do. Armstrong needs a man, a white man, and the man he chooses is Henry Smart.

A Star Called Henry 1999

Born in the Dublin slums of 1901, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast. By the time he can walk he’s out robbing and begging, often cold and always hungry, but a prince of the streets. By Easter Monday, 1916, he’s fourteen years old and already six-foot-two, a soldier in the Irish Citizen Army. A year later he’s ready to die for Ireland again, a rebel, a Fenian and a killer. With his father’s wooden leg as his weapon, Henry becomes a Republican legend – one of Michael Collins’ boys, a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bike.

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors 1996

‘My name is Paula Spencer. I am thirty-nine years old. It was my birthday last week. I was married for eighteen years. My husband died last year. He was shot by the Guards. He left me a year before that. I threw him out. His name was Charles Spencer; everyone called him Charlo.’

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors is one of Roddy Doyle’s finest achievements, the heart-rending story of a woman struggling to reclaim her dignity after a violent, abusive marriage and a worsening drink problem. Paula Spencer recalls her contented childhood, the audacity she learned as a teenager, the exhilaration of her romance with Charlo, and the marriage to him that left her powerless. Capturing both her vulnerability and her strength, Doyle gives Paula a voice that is real and unforgettable. Lean, sexy, funny and poignant, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors shows, yet again, that Roddy Doyle has an unparalleled gift for transforming ordinary life into great literature.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha 1993

Welcome to the world of ten-year-old Paddy Clarke, growing up in Barrytown, north Dublin. From fun and adventure on the streets, boredom in the classroom to increasing isolation at home, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is the story of a boy who sees everything but understands less and less. The book won the Booker Prize in 1993.

The Barrytown Trilogy 1992

Together in one volume, this book contains Roddy Doyle’s trilogy about the Rabbitte family of Barrytown, north Dublin. The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van, which was shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize.

The Van 1991

Jimmy Rabbitte is unemployed and rapidly running out of money. His best friend Bimbo has been made redundant at the company where he has worked for many years. The two old friends are out of luck and out of options. That is, until Bimbo finds a dilapidated ‘chipper van’ and the pair decide to go into business. The Van is a tender tale of male friendship, swimming in grease and stained with ketchup.

The Snapper 1990

When Sharon Rabbitte the older sister announces her pregnancy, the family is forced to rally together and discover the strangeness of intimacy. But the question remains: which friend of the family is the father of Sharon’s child?

The Commitments 1987

Barrytown, Dublin, has something to sing about. The Commitments are spreading the gospel of the soul. Ably managed by Jimmy Rabitte, brilliantly coached by Joey ‘The Lips’ Fagan, their twin assault on Motown and Barrytown takes them from the parish hall to immortality on vinyl. But can The Commitments live up to their name?

Not Just For Christmas 1999

Danny Murphy is going to meet his brother, Jimmy. They haven’t seen each other in more than 20 years. On the way to the meeting, Danny remembers the fun and the fights – and the one big fight that drove them apart. Will they fight again, or will they become the friends they used to be?

Mad Weekend 2006

Dave, Pat and Ben have been best friends since they were kids. They do everything together, and they all love Liverpool football club. On a trip to see their favourite team in action, they have a few too many drinks before the match. Dave and Pat get busy chatting up two local girls. Suddenly it’s time to leave for Anfield. But where is Ben?

Mad Weekend 2006

Dave, Pat and Ben have been best friends since they were kids. They do everything together, and they all love Liverpool football club. On a trip to see their favourite team in action, they have a few too many drinks before the match. Dave and Pat get busy chatting up two local girls. Suddenly it’s time to leave for Anfield. But where is Ben?

Wilderness 2007

Part roaring adventure, part family drama – with a charm that’s all Roddy Doyle. While Tom and Johnny are on a husky safari in Finland, their half-sister Gráinne stays at home, preparing to meet the mother who abandoned her.

The boys think every minute in the wilderness is a thrill – but then their mother’s sled doesn’t make it back to the lodge one night. She’s lost in the snow and it’s up to them to rescue her…

The Meanwhile Adventures 2004

No longer employed at the biscuit factory, Mr Mack is becoming an inventor instead. Unfortunately, he’s also been arrested. There was a small misunderstanding at the bank involving a saw inconveniently shaped like a machine gun. And, just when he needs her most, Mrs Mack has disappeared off to become the first woman to circle the globe without telling anyone. So it’s up to Jimmy, Robbie, Kayla and Rover the jaded wonder-dog to rescue Mr Mack from prison, avoid some nasty orphan catchers and save the world from an army of ill-mannered slugs. Will they succeed? There’s only one way to find out…

Rover Saves Christmas 2001

It’s Christmas Eve, and Rudolph’s got the flu! Jimmie and Robbie Mack are so desperate for Christmas to come that they’ve left twenty-seven sandwiches out for Santa. But Rudolf is off sick and Santa’s grounded the sleigh – with all the presents. Will the big day be cancelled? Or can Rover the wonder-dog save Christmas? Well, what do YOU think?

The Giggler Treatment 2000

‘The Gigglers waited. They waited for the wallop – Mr Mack hitting the poo. They waited for the squelch – Mr Mack stepping on the poo. They waited for the groan – Mr Mack seeing that most of the poo was now on his shoe.’ Who are the Gigglers? Good question. The Gigglers look after children. And they do it very well…

Rory & Ita 2002

ITA DOYLE: ‘In all my life I have lived in two houses, had two jobs, and one husband. I’m a very interesting person’

Rory & Ita, Roddy Doyle’s first non-fiction book, tells – largely in their own words – the story of his parents’ lives. They remember every detail of their Dublin childhoods – the people, the politics, idyllic times in the Wexford countryside for Ita, Rory’s apprenticeship as a printer. By the time they put down a deposit of two hundred pounds for a house in Kilbarrack, Rory was working as a compositor at the Irish Independent. By the time the first of their four children was born he’d become a teacher at the School of Printing in Dublin. Kilbarrack began to change, and Ireland too. Through their eyes we see the intensely Catholic society of their youth being transformed into the vibrant, modern Ireland of today.

Both are marvellous talkers, so combined with Roddy Doyle’s legendary skill in illuminating ordinary experience, Rory & Ita makes for a book of tremendous warmth and humanity.