Roddy Doyle Books in Order

Now in her sixties, Paula Spencer is sober but still living with the scars of years of domestic abuse and drinking. When her daughter Nicola finally explodes over what really happened in their old flat, mother and daughter are forced to face long-buried damage.

In this memoir, Olympic boxing champion Kellie Harrington, writing with Doyle, tells how she went from Dublin’s north inner city to world and Olympic gold. She describes battling for a place in a male sport, setbacks in competition and the pull of ordinary working life.

Set during and after Covid lockdowns, these ten stories follow people whose marriages, jobs and identities shift in isolation. Nurses, stranded travellers and middle-aged parents all confront loneliness and quiet regret, searching for small moments of connection.

Old friends Joe and Davy meet for a long night of pints in Dublin, circling around the woman who once meant everything to both of them. As stories are retold and revised, the novel becomes a meditation on friendship, memory and the stories men tell themselves.

This later volume in the Two Pints series again tunes in to two men at their regular pub table, now talking through Brexit, Trump and celebrity deaths. Short, sharp dialogues turn headlines into black humour and rueful reflections on getting older.

Sixty-year-old Charlie Savage juggles grandparent duty, football on television, a punk-drumming wife and friends who keep surprising him. Told in fifty-two weekly snapshots, the book charts a year of small domestic dramas that add up to a funny, tender portrait of late middle age.

When a Big Fat Baby tumbles from Granny Mack’s backpack, Rover the wonder dog and his obsessively tidy nephew Messi race to find her. Their chase across Dublin and beyond leaves the Gigglers dangerously short of poo for punishing misbehaving adults.

Middle-aged writer Victor Forde starts drinking alone in a new local pub, where a man claiming to be an old schoolmate keeps turning up. Their conversations drag Victor back to memories of abuse at a Christian Brothers school and to questions about his own fractured past.

Once again two unnamed men meet in a Dublin pub to gossip, swear and argue about the week’s news. Their riffs on politics, celebrity and family life capture the mix of gallows humour and quiet affection that runs through long friendships.

Former Manchester United and Ireland captain Roy Keane recounts the latter part of his playing days, his move into management and his new life as a television pundit. Co-written with Doyle, the memoir focuses on ambition, mistakes and the cost of staying fiercely competitive.

When the Black Dog of depression steals Dublin’s sense of humour, siblings Gloria and Raymond and hundreds of local children chase the creature through the city at night. Their wild pursuit becomes a hopeful story about community, courage and naming the darkness out loud.

Nearly thirty years after starting The Commitments, Jimmy Rabbitte is now a forty-something music entrepreneur with a wife, four kids and a diagnosis of bowel cancer. As treatment begins, he tracks down old bandmates and relatives, trying to repair what might soon be lost.

In a series of short pub conversations, two older Dublin men drink Guinness and chew over everything from football and pop stars to deaths, scandals and politics. Their crude jokes and tall tales slowly reveal the worries and loyalties underneath.

These thirteen stories follow middle-aged Irish men as they confront illness, fading marriages, lost jobs and the end of the economic boom. Moving between pubs, classrooms and holiday trips abroad, the collection shows how quiet, everyday crises can reshape a life.

Twelve-year-old Mary O’Hara is struggling with her grandmother Emer’s illness when she meets Tansey, the ghost of the great-grandmother she never knew. Four generations of women set out on a midnight road trip that becomes a gentle lesson in memory, family and saying goodbye.

An aging Henry Smart returns to Ireland after years in America, hoping to fix his legacy when film director John Ford wants to turn his life into a movie. As politics and propaganda twist his story, Henry is pulled into the violence and myths of modern Ireland.

Siobhán’s mother died when she was very young, and by ten she can no longer remember her face, only her voice and hands. A meeting with a mysterious woman in a park slowly helps Siobhán and her father move from silent grief toward shared stories and laughter.

Teenage brothers Tom and Johnny are sent on a winter dog-sledding trip in Finland with their mother, while their half-sister Grainne stays in Dublin to meet the mother who abandoned her. The story cuts between arctic adventure and a fragile family reunion back home.

This collection gathers eight stories about a rapidly changing, multicultural Ireland. Longtime Dubliners cross paths with refugees, au pairs and new arrivals, including a reformed Jimmy Rabbitte who tries to assemble a band where immigrant musicians take centre stage.

Ten years after the events of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, Paula Spencer is sober and trying to rebuild her life in Dublin. The novel follows her daily struggles with work, money and motherhood as she tests how stable recovery really feels.

Mr Mack’s latest invention, a saw that looks worryingly like a machine gun, lands him in jail when bank staff panic. While he tries not to confess to a crime he did not commit, Rover and the Mack children juggle jailbreak plans, a runaway mum and rebellious slugs.

On the run from the IRA, Henry Smart lands in 1920s America, hustling on the streets of New York before fleeing mobsters to Chicago. There he becomes fixer and bodyguard to trumpeter Louis Armstrong, trying to outrun old enemies and his own past.

In this memoir, Doyle records the life stories of his parents, Rory and Ita, from their Dublin childhoods through courtship, work, raising a family and moving to suburban Kilbarrack. Everyday details build into a portrait of Ireland changing across the twentieth century.

It is Christmas Eve and Rudolph has the flu, grounding Santa’s sleigh along with every child’s presents. Rover the dog and the Mack children are recruited to stand in for the reindeer, launching a chaotic overnight dash around the world.

When adults are mean to children, furry pranksters called Gigglers buy dog poo from Rover the wonder dog and plant it under the offenders’ shoes. When they target kind-hearted Mr Mack by mistake, his kids and Rover race through Dublin to rescue him in time.

For the first time in more than twenty years, Danny Murphy is on his way to see his brother Jimmy. On the journey he relives childhood pranks, the argument that drove them apart and the question of whether two stubborn men can become friends again.

Henry Smart grows up in the Dublin slums of the early twentieth century, dodging hunger and the police before joining the Easter Rising and the guerrilla war that follows. His journey blends street survival, political idealism and an uneasy love of violence.

Paula Spencer, a working-class Dublin cleaner and mother of four, looks back on her violent marriage and years of drinking. As she pieces together memories from childhood to adulthood, she begins to see how survival and self-respect might still be possible.

Ten-year-old Paddy Clarke roams the streets of late 1960s Barrytown, lighting fires, tormenting his little brother and soaking up adult talk he barely understands. Over one year his parents’ marriage unravels, forcing Paddy to swap playground bravado for unwanted responsibility.

This volume brings together two early Barrytown plays. In Brownbread, three unemployed young men kidnap a bishop and watch their big idea spiral out of control, while War turns a pub quiz night into a darkly comic showdown run by a trigger-happy quizmaster.

After Jimmy Rabbitte Sr and his friend Bimbo are laid off, they sink a redundancy cheque into a battered fish-and-chip van. As queues grow during a football-crazed summer, money worries and pride slowly strain the friendship that got the business started.

Twenty-year-old Sharon Rabbitte discovers she is pregnant and refuses to name the father, setting off gossip across Barrytown. Her chaotic but loyal family rally around her as she navigates shame, independence and the comedy of being visibly pregnant in a tight-knit community.

In north Dublin, music-mad Jimmy Rabbitte pulls together a motley crew of unemployed young people and declares them a soul band called The Commitments. Rehearsals, bar gigs and clashing egos test whether they can really bring soul music to their own streets.