We were deeply saddened by news of the death at the weekend of Edna O’Brien, by any measure one of Ireland’s greatest writers. Her son, our friend and former colleague Carlo Gébler, has paid moving tribute to her in The Irish Times, remembering in particular ‘her very beautiful brilliant hands’: ‘I need something,’ he writes, ‘an image that I can hold on to after my mother’s death and instantly it comes. It’ll be her hands, the left holding the spiral notebook, the right holding the pen, driving the nib across the page, writing word after word after word, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions ... words, words, words.’ And what words.

It was with shock and sadness too that we learned of the sudden death of Eibhear Walshe, Director of University College Cork’s Creative Writing Programme. As critic, memoirist and novelist, Eibhear’s was one of the most distinctive and beautifully humane voices in Irish letters. To all who knew and loved him, as to all who knew and loved Edna O’Brien, we, who read and loved them both, extend our sincerest sympathy.