Why Irish romance fiction deserves its happily ever after
Irish literature
is rife with romance fiction, from Sydney Owenson's The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale published in 1806 to Anna Carey's recently released Our Song.
Romance fiction revolves around a love story and ends happily.
It includes literary classics as well as commercial fiction, and plays a crucial role in representing Irish society, past and present. By featuring characters who overcome internal and external barriers to happiness, it voices aspirations for personal fulfilment and a better society.
Wildly popular with readers of all ages, romance has long been the most profitable genre in publishing. Colleen Hoover, an American whose novels revolve around love stories, was the bestselling writer in Ireland in 2022, and Irish authors from Maeve Binchy to Sally Rooney have had internationally chart-busting, award-winning novels rooted in romance.
READ MORE
A quick scroll through BookTok or Instagram, or a quick pass through any library or bookshop, confirms that romance is having a cultural moment.
Yet, this genre continues to be dismissed as a mindless guilty pleasure for readers. Even the most successful Irish writers bristle at the 'romance' label because the term so effectively has been weaponised to demean and dismiss their work.
An exhibition currently on view at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) – titled Happy Ever After: Falling in Love with Irish Romance Fiction – seeks to change that misconception.
By awarding Irish romance fiction the serious consideration it deserves, it hopes to transform 'romance' into a neutral descriptor, one that generates as little adverse friction as labels like 'French fiction' or 'nature writing'.
[
The rise of romantasy: Escapist books become more popular as real-world challenges loom
Opens in new window
]
The exhibition traces the long and varied history of the Irish romance novel, beginning with Vertue Rewarded; or, the Irish Princess, anonymously published in 1693.
This is the first of many examples in which romance serves as political allegory. In subsequent centuries, numerous other novels have focused on love stories between English settlers or soldiers and Irish women, thus offering a highly personal metaphor for reconciliation.
This tradition continues into the 21st century: Sue Divin's
Guard Your Heart (2021) depicts two 18-year-olds from Derry, one Catholic and the other Protestant, who meet and fall in love in 2016, years after the Good Friday/ Belfast Agreement, but who must necessarily negotiate the legacy of the Troubles.
Romance fiction has historically been written by women, for women. By taking romance seriously, we not only open the canon to more women writers, but also revise certain long-standing misconceptions of Irish literature. Aside from rare examples such as Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses, it has been commonly understood that poetry, drama, and the short story were the dominant Irish literary forms until the late 20th century.
But Ulysses didn't come out of nowhere. For centuries, Irish women writers published hundreds of popular novels, many of them romances. In the early decades of the 20th century, Katharine Tynan wrote more than 100 novels, Rosa Mulholland more than 50. Yet these contributions were largely ignored, disregarded as sentimental or too feminine.
Irish romance fiction frequently depicts suffering, loss and shame – but it also shows how people can endure those trials. Photograph: MoLI
Irish romance fiction is a transnational genre, one that has long been popular with readers worldwide. In fact, my interest in its history was stoked by a discovery in the library stacks of the Jesuit college in Massachusetts where I teach. At Holy Cross, our collection holds shelves and shelves of these older Irish romances, suggesting that these novels were relished by the many Irish immigrant priests teaching there during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This finding undermines another stereotype, that only women read romance: over a century ago, priests and their male students were enjoying these warm tales of human connection.
The enduring appeal of Irish romance fiction owes much to the qualities it shares with Irish literature more broadly: lively dialogue, vivid detail and a tight focus on ordinary life. At times, these books seem to depict cultural transformations almost as they occur in real time. Published in 1917, and dedicated to the 1916 revolutionaries, Annie MP Smithson's bestselling novel, Her Irish Heritage, might seem like a dusty artefact.
Yet, it unfolds in a surprisingly modern Dublin with professional men and women enjoying motorcar rides and film screenings. In one scene, Smithson describes Dr. Delaney and nurse Mary Carmichael catching the opera Faust at the Gaiety; while the novel embraces the conservative mores of its time, Smithson's accounts of flirtatious banter and eating chocolates at the interval feel as though they could be happening today.
Skipping ahead a century, Adiba Jaigirdar's Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating, published in 2021, invites readers into the everyday lives of two queer teens as their friendship evolves into a romance. Without significant toll, the young protagonists embrace their ambitions and their attraction with support from their middle-class Bengali-Irish families.
Meanwhile, writers such as Marian Keyes and Patricia Scanlan are revisiting characters from their previous novels. Decades after we first met them, the Walsh sisters and City Girls now care for elderly parents, manage menopause, struggle with grief, negotiate a changing workplace and enjoy the freedoms of the empty nest – all with the backing of friends, family and love interests.
Irish romance fiction moves with the times. Its characters might exercise reproductive choice, seek gender equity, escape intimate partner abuse, struggle to come out of the closet, or navigate the challenges of inward and outward migration. These books also reflect and normalise changing perceptions of love and marriage.
Today, the happily ever after in Irish romance does not necessarily mean a Catholic wedding between a man and a woman. Instead, it may take the form of short-term relationships, queer relationships, polyamorous relationships or individual self-fulfilment.
[
How to write a romance novel: just fall in love with your hero
Opens in new window
]
A global reading community is helping to give romance fiction its own happy ending. Photograph: MoLI
In recent years, romance fiction has responded to legitimate criticism that it too often unfolds in a world of white, heterosexual affluence. Increasingly, Irish romance fiction, particularly in the Young Adult category, represents the diversity of the island's population.
New works feature a broader spectrum of linguistic, racial and ethnic identities, as seen in Disha Bose's I Will Blossom Anyway and Zainab Boladale's Braids Take a Day. They also highlight a range of gendered identities and sexual desires, as with Jarlath Gregory's What Love Looks Like, Kel Menton's A Fix of Light and Ciara Smyth's The Falling in Love Montage.
Love interests are more likely to have bodies that do not conform to traditional standards of beauty or ability, as in Carmel Harrington's My Pear-Shaped Life and Sally Rooney's Intermezzo.
Some have claimed the consoling narratives of romance perpetuate false hope. But in a polarised world, these novels show us not only the risks and rewards of reaching out to others, and the power of emotional and physical intimacy, but also the roles that a community might play in the realisation of a happily ever after.
Indeed, a global reading community is helping to give romance fiction its own happy ending. Through their purchasing power and their voices on digital platforms such as GoodReads, Bookstagram and BookTok, fans of romance fiction are advocating for the genre, helping to ensure it receives the respectful recognition it deserves.
These books are also fun to read. Part of the pleasure stems from how authors cleverly revitalise recognisable storylines and tropes such as the love triangle or the second-chance romance – a fact evident in the many contemporary adaptations of Jane Austen's fiction, including the recent production of Emma staged at the Abbey Theatre.
Such good feeling is reflected in the design of the MoLI exhibit. The objects on display tell fascinating stories about Irish romance, past and present; visitors are encouraged to flick through books and to listen to podcasts and interviews; informative quotes captured in speech bubbles and posted to the walls reflect the sense of community among romance readers, who in this case also happen to be well-regarded academics.
Sally Rooney's Intermezzo is an example of where love interests are more likely to have bodies that do not conform to traditional standards of beauty or ability. Photograph: Simone Padovani/ Awakening/ Getty Images
Progressive politics and pleasure are not mutually exclusive. As a scholar of Irish writing and an avid romance reader, I find it baffling that fictional representations of individuals finding love and feeling good have attracted such contempt. My decades-long academic career has been built on the rigorous study of formally complex books and plays about challenging issues. But I also enjoy the accessible and uplifting narratives offered by romance fiction. Truth be told, during the darkest days of the pandemic, I received a mildly unsettling email celebrating my status as among the 'top 1 per cent of Kindle romance readers worldwide,' so I know of what I speak.
Like other readers of romance, I am not naive. These books and their happy endings do not seduce me into believing that everything is just fine and inevitably will work out for the best; I am, after all, a woman currently living in United States.
Irish romance fiction frequently depicts suffering, loss, shame and sustained bad feeling – but it also shows us how people can endure those trials and even thrive. These stories suggest that consensual emotional and physical intimacy, and mutual gestures of care and attention, might help make the world a better place.
Both romance fiction and Irish women's writing are flourishing, so this is the perfect time to revisit the genre's contributions.
As in any written corpus, some of these books are great, while some are forgettable. Yes, romance novels are predictable in that they end happily. But for the record, no one criticises football matches when they end, as expected, on a grassy field rather than in outer space.
The 'happily ever after' is not a generic failure, as Marian Keyes observed in our interview for RadioMoLI. It is simply where the author chooses to end the story.
Happy Ever After: Falling in Love with Irish Romance Fiction continues at
MoLI
until November 9th
Paige Reynolds is Professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross. Her latest book is Modernism in Irish Women's Contemporary Writing: The Stubborn Mode (2023)
Irish romance fiction favourites - by curator Paige Reynolds
By taking romance seriously, we revise certain long-standing misconceptions of Irish literature. Photograph: MoLI
Kate O'Brien's Mary Lavelle (1936): Banned in 1936, this gorgeous novel depicts Mary's affair, while working as a governess in Spain, with the married Juanito. It is one of many Irish romances with an untidy HEA focused more on self-fulfilment than lasting romantic love.
Emma Donoghue's Stir-Fry (1994): This insightful novel set in 1989 is a campus romance featuring lesbian characters. Read today, it reminds us of the rapid transformations in matters of gender and sexuality.
Maeve Binchy's Tara Road (1998): Light a Penny Candle and Circle of Friends are Binchy's acknowledged masterworks, but I have a soft spot for this tale of an Irish and American woman swapping houses one summer: a potent reminder that romantic relationships are often opaque not only to outsiders, but to the people in them.
Marian Keyes's Rachel's Holiday (1997) and Again, Rachel (2022): Two of my desert island books. Keyes realistically navigates Rachel's decades-long path of addiction and recovery, showing the support offered, in good times and bad, by her quirky family and her super sexy love interest, Luke.
Anna McPartlin, Pack Up the Moon (2005): The term 'chick-lit' has a bad rap, but I love the early 21st-century romances from Poolbeg Press that show Irish women exercising their newfound spending power and sexual freedoms. This one focuses on healing from grief.
Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen, Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling (2017): Romance is one among many types of relationships in this first of the delightful Aisling series. When I first read it, I was impressed that a Brazilian appears among the cast of characters as a simple matter of fact – a confirmation that Irish romance fiction swiftly embraces and helps to normalise cultural changes.
Sue Divin's Guard Your Heart (2021): Not many HEAs in Northern Irish romance, but this Young Adult novel set in 2016 is a smart, engaging account of two 18-year-olds from Derry (both born on the day the peace agreement was signed) who find love despite lingering sectarian discord.
Caroline O'Donoghue's The Rachel Incident (2023): This is another campus romance, set in Cork. It cleverly spins a commonplace plot device found across Irish fiction, an affair between an older male professor and younger student.
Naoise Dolan The Happy Couple (2023): Dolan's Exciting Times is more obviously a HEA romance, but in this second novel, she astutely (and hilariously) takes on the marriage plot with characters documenting the intricate path to Celine and Luke's wedding day.
Sally Rooney Intermezzo (2024): In her fourth novel, Rooney reworks familiar tropes – the age-gap romance, the meet cute, star-crossed lovers – and grants her characters satisfying HEAs that fit the present day.
Another favourite - by curatorial adviser Maria Butler
Patricia Scanlan's City Girl (1990): This eighties-tastic novel was the first to apply the topics and themes found in the bonkbuster to a modern Irish context. Although parts seem a bit dated, it paved the way for everything we have now.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘Surprise' Ed Sheeran appearance lights up Fleadh Cheoil
Singer Ed Sheeran has made a surprise appearance at this year's Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Wexford , hosting a performance at a local pub. Rumours had been circulating since last week that the Galway Girl singer would attend, with organisers saying these were 'just rumours', until Tuesday. Those involved in the festival received notice a 'little bit in advance' of his arrival. The unplanned performance caused a bit of a headache for those involved in event control, one person involved said, laughing, with an influx of attendees hoping to catch a glimpse of the A Team singer. READ MORE By the time Sheeran arrived on Tuesday at the Sky & The Ground pub, on the town's South Main Street, large crowds had already gathered and surrounded it. He performed several well-known hits, including Nancy Mulligan, a song inspired by his Wexford-born grandmother Anne Mary Sheeran, who died in 2023 at the age of 98. He also performed a cover of Wild Mountain Thyme with trad group Biird and later sang Perfect for crowds outside who failed to get a spot inside. [ Biird at Vicar Street review: Consummate musicians deliver radical trad for the TikTok generation Opens in new window ] Sheeran, who was born and raised in England, recently told how he identifies culturally as Irish. The 34-year-old, who was brought up in Suffolk, has a large Irish family and said he would spend his holidays in the country as a child. 'I class my culture as Irish. I think that's what I grew up with,' he told The Louis Theroux Podcast. The performance has generated buzz around the town of Wexford, which was hosting a festival already outperforming last year's numbers. 🎸 Ed Sheeran is currently in Sky and the Ground performing Nancy Mulligan for pub goers. There won't be a strawberry picked tonight! — Beat 102 103 (@beat102103) Between 80,000 and 100,000 are estimated to have attended on Sunday, according to organisers, who expect more than 750,000 to attend throughout the week, compared with about 650,000 attendees last year. Michael D Higgins officially opened the festival for the last time as President on Sunday, saying it had a 'special place in my heart and in the hearts of the Irish people, both at home and abroad'.
Irish Times
7 hours ago
- Irish Times
New lease of life: Dead Zoo Lab brings back beloved Natural History Museum collection
A new 'dead zoo' exhibition displaying objects from the Natural History Museum during its temporary closure has opened in Dublin. The famous Merrion Street museum, known colloquially as the Dead Zoo, closed in September for refurbishments likely to take several years. Its replacement exhibition, entitled the Dead Zoo Lab, has now opened at the National Museum in Collins Barracks. It has been designed to allow for ongoing changes to the displays, offering a broader range of the natural history collection over time. Approximately 1,300 objects will be on public display at any one time, including mammals, birds, geology, entomology, amphibians, reptiles and marine life. READ MORE Visitors can see some familiar favourites such as Spoticus the giraffe and the giant Irish deer. [ A buzz of discovery in the Dead Zoo Opens in new window ] 'The curators have done a huge amount of work on putting tons of stuff in the cases to actually make the diversity of the different animal groups come to life', natural history keeper Paolo Viscardi told The Irish Times. 'Really, that's the whole point of this space – it's to give us a bit of elbow room to try things out, to experiment, to change things around a little bit. But in the cases we get a chance to really bombard people with huge amounts of cool stuff.' Sadie Hanley (12) at the Dead Zoo Lab, Collins Barracks. Photograph: Mark Stedman For Emma Murphy, curator of terrestrial zoology at the Natural History Museum, the dodo is her favourite specimen on display. It is the first time in years that visitors can see the skeleton of the flightless bird which became extinct in the late 17th century. 'It was on permanent display on the balconies of Merrion Street which have been closed now since about 2007 and are going to be part of our major refurbishment,' Ms Murphy said. 'If you look closely at the skeleton, you'll be able to see that some parts are real and some parts are fake. So the real bone is made up of bones of different individuals that were found in kind of boggy marshland in Mauritius.' Other parts are made from wood. Additionally, a selection of delicate glass models from the Blaschka Glass Models of Marine Life is on display. The National Museum of Ireland has the world's largest collections of the models, created in the 19th century by German glass artists Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. Some visitors to the Dead Zoo Lab on Tuesday had fond memories of visiting the Natural History Museum and welcomed the opportunity to bring their children and grandchildren to the new exhibition. Ivan McCarthy from Swords, Co Dublin, brought his grandchildren. Having taken his children to the Merrion Square version many many years ago, he hopes his grandchildren will 'do the same with their own kids in the future, and it'll keep going forever.' Muireann Banks was exploring the exhibition with her nephew Enzo (five). 'I came here as a child over in Merrion Square, so it's great to come in and have a look at all the animals,' she said. Dr Patrick Roycroft, curator of geology at the Natural History Museum, is particularly excited for visitors to see his case of zoned micas, one of the most common rock forming minerals in the world and 'the most extraordinary thing you're going to see mineralogically'. He wants 'everybody from seven-year-olds to professors of mineralogy to know that this exists and that there's a ton of stuff, information and wonder that you can get out of it both scientifically and visually.' Director of collections and access at the National Museum of Ireland, Dr Éimear O'Connor, said the new exhibition 'has been designed to promote and encourage collaboration with communities, artists and scientists, all of which will inform the interpretation of the natural history collections for the museum on Merrion Street when it reopens following the refurbishment and conservation works.' The National Museum of Ireland is open seven days a week and admission is free.
The Irish Sun
13 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
‘Didn't know we'd jumped into a car with a seven-time All-Ireland winner' – Ex-Dublin ace rescues Wexford Fleadh punters
There was somewhat of a similar vibe in Dublin over the weekend as there was in Wexford WEXFORD WAY 'Didn't know we'd jumped into a car with a seven-time All-Ireland winner' – Ex-Dublin ace rescues Wexford Fleadh punters EOGHAN O'GARA was often the super-sub during his playing days with Dublin and emerged as the late hero for two Wexford Fleadh punters. Brandon Cassidy and his pal told of how they had failed in their efforts to snag a taxi to Wexford Town - only for O'Gara to save the day. Advertisement 3 Their long weekend was aided by O'Gara who plays for Wexford club Shelmaliers these days Credit: @Cass05Brandon 3 The powerful target man previously lined out for Templeogue Synge Street 3 This year's trad music showpiece will run until August 10 Credit: @RTENationwide Brandon tweeted: "No taxis to be got in Wexford, thumbing a lift from Curracloe to Wexford Town for the Fleadh. "Chanced our arm with this man not knowing who he was, 10 minutes into the car journey he says his name. Didn't know we're after jumping into the car with seven-time All-Ireland winner. Gent!!" The lovely gesture was hailed by X users as a "fantastic story". Another Brandon replied: "Fantastic story. Enjoy the fleadh ceoil." While Robbie hailed: "That's what us Dubs are about, especially the southside Dubs, Eoghan is a gent & hasn't he also won a Wexford SF title with Shelmaliers?" Advertisement There were similar scenes of celebration back in the capital too as the Dublin ladies team walloped Meath in the All-Ireland final on Sunday. On Monday the team maintained a long-running tradition by visiting The Boar's Head with the Brendan Martin Cup. The All-Ireland winners in both the men's and women's game stop by the historic boozer with the trophy the day after the All-Ireland final each year. They posed for photos with countless supporters with even a few members of An Garda Siochana among them. Advertisement That specific pic was shared on the An Garda Siochana Dublin Facebook page. It was captioned: "The Dublin Senior Ladies Team paid a visit to Capel Street today in the Bridewell CEA and met with some local fans and business stakeholders. TJ Reid and wife Niamh de Brun's gorgeous pregnancy reveal "Our Community team were on hand to meet the ladies and enjoy the great atmosphere they brought with them." Paul Casey and Derek Murray's panel had a busy Bank Holiday Monday as they also brought the trophy to the Crumlin Children's Hospital. Advertisement It was meant to be an even more hectic schedule though, but the windy conditions from Storm Floris saw the official homecoming in Smithfield Square postponed until Tuesday evening. A Dublin City Council statement explained: "Due to Monday's strong winds the homecoming has been moved to the Tuesday rather than the day after the final which would be traditionally done. "Dublin City Council have organised the homecoming for 6pm on Tuesday in Smithfield Square." There will be music and face painting as well as the Brendan Martin Cup present at the event. Casey is delighted to get the chance to present the Cup in front of the Dublin fans. Advertisement When speaking to RTÉ, he outlined: "We're looking forward to getting a great crowd in Smithfield and giving the girls a reception they deserve." He added: "It's great to wake up this morning as All-Ireland champions. "A morning like this is special and tops off a day what was a great day yesterday. It's great, it's a fantastic privilege to come and see the kids in the hospital. "The morning after an All-Ireland is really nice to come here and see the smiles on their faces and all the different county jerseys."
