Empire

Set in a turbulent British empire, these historical stories brim with energy and emotion, taking readers from the remote reaches of early twentieth century Burma to an Ireland in flux during the period of the 1916 Rebellion and after. These interconnected stories are filled with O’Donnell’s storytelling gifts and unexpected moments of revelation. Her characters are shown to lead complex, sometimes modern and progressives lives, that invite the reader to accompany them through a period of vivid and unforgettable change.

Arlen House 2018

Storm Over Belfast

“Hers are refreshingly grown-up, adult stories, centred on the desires, and the disappointments, of characters making choices that cannot be unmade or, indeed, made again. As a poet O’Donnell possesses an eye for detail the clutter of modem life in the form of material possessions, but also an eye for the subtleties of character.There is too. a poet’s stillness to be found in this often precise prose, a stillness appropriate to the nature of the revelations on offer to the reader.”  DEREK HAND

New Island Books 2008

Strong Pagans

The Ireland portrayed in these stories is a complicated and self-conscious modern country, where safe old pieties have gone and have been replaced by individual responsibility. O’Donnell focuses on that shadowy area of relationships which are beginning to fissure apart, and her characters are often wised-up, clued-in people who are constantly discovering that they haven’t, in fact, got the measure of one another. She writes about women – their courage and self-doubt; their understanding of their male partners; their vulnerability as mothers and daughters. The stories are darkly beautiful, the product of a powerful imagination.

Poolbeg 1991

Empire

Set in a turbulent British empire, these historical stories brim with energy and emotion, taking readers to the remote reaches of early twentieth century Burma to an Ireland in flux. These interconnected stories are filled with humor, insight, and unexpected moments of revelation

Arlen House 2018

Storm Over Belfast

A collection of powerful, striking and sensuous short stories by one of Ireland’s finest writers, Storm Over Belfast is another potent display of Mary O’Donnell’s immense talent.

‘These wide-ranging, impressive stories pay ‘absolute attention’ to the heart’s disappointments, longings, destinies and skilfully tell of a changing Ireland and a changing world. The strongest impression is of how O’Donnell’s perceptive, spiky writing convincingly captures men and women’s restless inner lives. Set in Australia, the U.S., France, Germany, urban and rural Ireland, Mary O’Donnell confidently creates in each story a world where a pivotal moment makes for a new way of looking, a new way of seeing; like all engaging short stories, the ending creates a silence in which the reader begins to imagine that story and its characters living beyond the final sentence. This is a memorable and vital collection.’ Niall McMonagle

New Island Books 2008

Strong Pagans

The Ireland portrayed in these stories is a complicated and self-conscious modern country, where safe old pieties have gone and have been replaced by individual responsibility. O’Donnell focuses on that shadowy area of relationships which are beginning to fissure apart, and her characters are often wised-up, clued-in people who are constantly discovering that they haven’t, in fact, got the measure of one another. She writes about women – their courage and self-doubt; their understanding of their male partners; their vulnerability as mothers and daughters. The stories are darkly beautiful, the product of a powerful imagination.

Poolbeg 1991