Irish language books are often overlooked -but present a rich tradition in both Gaeilge agus Béarla.

The Irish Language has had a difficult century. With independence came hope that we could become a truly bilingual country, but in the intervening years that hope has been replaced with a quiet pleading that the language can just last on.

   Possibly – Kindle is now outselling books online….but I for one prefer the thought of real books to electronic screens
    Apparently now, Amazon are selling more Kindles than they are books. The much talked about death of the book continues apace, but will it really come to that? And I for one, am not so sure about the virtues of reading off a computer of sorts. I have an iphone, an ipod, I can listen to my music electronically, read my news electronically, but the thought of reading a book in that way turns me off.

Dermot Healy's new book - Long Time No See has just been published by Faber & Faber. It created a storm on its release, with Eileen Battersby of the Irish Times writing a review which in turn led to several letters to the editor in the days and weeks afterwards. The fuss over it has led to detract from the content of the book itself,