NEW AND NECESSARY Since its full-scale launch in 2003, IRISH PAGES: A JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY WRITING has established itself as the island’s premier literary journal, combining a large general readership with outstanding writing from Ireland and overseas. Widely considered the Irish equivalent of Granta in England, or The Paris Review in the United States, it offers an unrivalled window on the literary and cultural life of these islands – and further afield.
Late 2018 saw the formal launch of our Press in the sense of an annual programme of major book-publishing, under its new bilingual imprint, THE IRISH PAGES PRESS/CLÓ AN MHÍL BHUÍ. In the view of the Editors, this was an auspicious moment for the development of a new high-profile literary press firmly rooted in Belfast and Ireland.
With the recent closure of several longstanding Northern Irish presses, THE IRISH PAGES PRESS is uniquely qualified for this important cultural endeavour after two decades of publishing Ireland’s largest and most international journal. As the single all-Ireland press and journal, the organisation possessed the literary experience, distribution and financial health sufficient to launch a book publishing programme of the highest quality, comparable to any in these islands.
Currently, THE IRISH PAGES PRESS is limited to poetry, essays, memoir and other forms of non-fiction in English, Irish and Scots.
THE IRISH PAGES PRESS is characterized by two essential, necessary components, flowing from the journal's outstanding standards in an age of media noise and publishing hyperbole: literary content of exceptional quality, and production values (always hardback) equal to any in these islands. The sole criteria for publication are the distinction of the writing and the integrity and independence of the individual voice.
Winner of the "British Book Award Small Press of the Year 2022 Island of Ireland," the Press published 13 titles between 2021-2023, with three forthcoming in 2023.