The 11 Best Irish Novels of All Time

Dublin streets, small-town secrets and one very famous count. Experimental modernists and quiet contemporary voices argue it out.

1. 1
   Ulysses

   James Joyce's 1922 modernist day in Dublin.
   1000pts
2. 2
   The Butcher Boy

   Patrick McCabe's 1992 darkly comic novel of a boy in a small town.
   877pts
3. 3
   Dracula

   Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel.
   709pts
4. 4
   The Sea

   John Banville's 2005 Booker winner about grief and memory.
   600pts
5. 5
   The Spinning Heart

   Donal Ryan's 2012 chorus of voices in a small town after the crash.
   600pts
6. 6
   Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

   Joyce's 1916 novel following Stephen Dedalus.
   600pts
7. 7
   Normal People

   Sally Rooney's 2018 novel about a couple across years.
   491pts
8. 8
   The Gathering

   Anne Enright's 2007 Booker winner on a family after a death.
   491pts
9. 9
   The Third Policeman

   Flann O'Brien's surreal murder story, published in 1967.
   360pts
10. 10
    Gulliver's Travels

    Jonathan Swift's 1726 satire.
    360pts
11. 11
    At Swim-Two-Birds

    Flann O'Brien's 1939 comic metafiction.
    0pts

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