Product Description

An irresistible collection of short stories, some hilarious, some heartbreaking, from the most popular contemporary Irish women writers. Poignant, hilarious, heartwarming in turn, this anthology includes never-before-published short stories by some of the best-known and best-loved Irish writers, including Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly, Julie Parsons, Deirdre Purcell, Joan O'Neill, Morag Prunty, Colette Caddle and many more. It also includes stories by up-and-coming Irish stars like Annie Sparrow, Catherine Barry and Marisa Mackle. While some stories will have you laughing out loud, others will have you reaching for your hanky: but they all display their own peculiar brand of Irish charm. And it's all in a very good cause: 1 pound from every copy sold will go to Barnardo's children's charity, and the Irish charity, The Society of St Vincent de Paul, which aims to alleviate poverty throughout the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #590495 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

A great find!
I recently bought 4 books with short stories by Irish and Scottish women -- and the first two were a disappointment. Then I started reading the third one, IRISH GIRLS ABOUT TOWN, and what a difference! Now, this was exactly my cup of tea :)
I especially enjoyed three stories -- The 28th Day by Catherine Barry, The Union Man by Tina Reilly and The Ring Circle by Martina Devlin. (I was disappointed by the fact that Maeve Binchy's story seemed to be an extract from one of her novels...)
"The 28th Day" is a fantastic description of PMT. How clever to think of that subject matter! Yes, really! You have to read it to see what I mean. Barry treats her character with such humour and understanding. An absolutely wonderful short story -- and I am most definitely going to order Barry's novels, now that I have "discovered" her!
The same goes for Reilly. After reading her brilliant story, "The Union Man" (about a woman married to a "mother's boy"), I want to read more of her work. Both these writers have a way of getting a serious point across by using humour and irony. And they write about things so many women have experienced, no matter what country they live in. Perfect!
I loved Devlin's "The Ring Circle" for similar reasons as the first two writers I mentioned. She deals with such an ordinary subject matter (what to do with the wedding band after a divorce) in such a comic way. I'm sure many of us have been in that situation. What DO we do with the ring when the marriage is over?
Oh, these are writers you simply MUST get to know. I discovered them by chance ... and I am sooooooo glad!

A hit & miss affair
As an avid reader I often run out of my own books & turn to my wife's collection. She had recently bought this but had not yet read it so I though I would give it a go (anything written by Maeve Binchy is worth reading).

There are many different stories, with different themes in this collection but I think they can easily be separated in to two sections - very, good stories & very, bad stories.

The good ones are written by the names headlining the book (Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly etc). These stories (& a couple of others) are very well-written, very funny & thoroughly enjoyable.

The bad stories...well, the less said about them the better. They are poorly written, not at all funny & completely unbelievable. Too many of the writers evidently believed they had a good idea & forced a story out of it.

In summary, I would compare this book to most compilation CD's. You buy the CD for a handful of gem's....& you fast-forward through the fillers.

Well worth the money
Buying this book is money well spent as it's the type of collection you'll want to leave on the bedside locker and dip in and outt as you please. Alll the alll favourites are featured such as Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Sarah Webb and Cathy Kelly but I also enjoyed the stories of the less famous writers such as Annie Sparrow and Marisa Mackle. Highly recommended.