This dazzling anthology, edited and introduced by Dermot Bolger, is a splendidly comprehensive and up-to-the-minute collection of the finest recent fiction from a nation of master storytellers. This collection of astonishing breadth reveals a literature of genuine global stature, as ancient as the Irish Sea.

Contributors and stories include: John Banville, from Mefisto; Leland Bardwell, "The Hairdresser"; Sebastian Barry, from The Engine of Owl-Light; Mary Beckett, "Heaven"; Samuel Beckett, "For to End Yet Again"; Sara Berkeley, "The Sky's Gone Out"; Dermot Bolger, "The Journey Home"; Claire Boylan, "Villa Marta"; Shane Connaughton, "Ojus"; Mary Dorcey, "The Husband"; Roddy Doyle, from The Snapper; Anne Enright, "Men and Angels"; Hugo Hamilton, from Surrogate City; Dermot Healy, "The Death of Matti Bonner"; Aidan Higgins, from Balcony of Europe; Desmond Hogan, from A Curious Street; Jennifer Johnston, from The Christmas Tree; Neil Jordan, "Last Rights"; Molly Kean, Patrick McCabe, from The Butcher Boy; Brian Moore, "The Sight"; Edna O'Brien, "What a Sky"; William Trevor, "The Ballroom of Romance"; Val Mulkerns, "Memory and Desire"; Robert McLiam Wilson, from Ripley Bogle, and many more.