Emer Martin and Irvine Welsh

In Emer Martin’s Thirsty Ghosts, two families intertwine in this energetic new work, an epic intergenerational saga that began with The Cruelty Men (2018) and continues here as punk rockers and Catholic laundries collide and spiral forward into a post-colonial Ireland still haunted by history. Interweaving scenes from Ireland’s mythological past, the Tudor plantations, the Magdalene laundries and the 1980s, Thirsty Ghosts is epic in scope but intimate in focus. The Lyons, professionals in a newly independent state, are attacked by paramilitaries in their family home in Tyrone. The displaced eccentric O’Conaills, traumatized by industrial schools and laundries, find themselves in leafy Dublin 4. There’s a servant girl who meets Henry VIII, a Lithuanian Jewish family who become part of the fabric of Dublin, and a wild young girl who escapes the laundry only to stumble into a psycho pimp. Related with dark humour and high literary style, Thirsty Ghosts is a revelatory exploration of Ireland; its themes of power, class, fertility, violence and deep love are as universal as the old stories that illuminate the characters’ lives.

The truth is what we say the truth is… In Irvine Welsh’s Resolution, former detective Ray Lennox is determined to start a new life. He has left Edinburgh Police behind for a fresh career and a fresh relationship in Brighton. Then he meets Mathew Cardingworth. Rich, smooth-talking and immaculately dressed, he is seemingly a pillar of the local community – yet he soon draws Lennox back to a past that he’s desperate to forget. As Lennox identifies the links between Cardingworth, a series of violent attacks and the disappearances of a group of foster care boys, he is forced to ask himself: what must he sacrifice to expose the truth?

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