Skip the Pub Crawl and Read One of These Books on St. Patrick's Day

There's something very quintessentially Irish about the relationship between a man and his dog, and Spill Simmer Falter Wither traces the steps of two outcasts, a man shunned by his village and his one-eyed dog, as their unlikely connection becomes their saving grace.

This winner of the 2015 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature will have you in awe of Baume's beautiful prose and captivating images of a seaside town.

You've probably never heard of Maeve Brennan, but we're here to tell you she's about to become your next literary and style muse. Back in her days writing at the New Yorker, she wore high heels, dressed in all black with a fresh white rose pinned to her lapel, and wore red lipstick — but her style was no match for her finesse with the written word.

The Springs of Affection tells the story of the Ireland Brennan had left behind when she moved to New York City at the age of 17. Recently rediscovered as one of Ireland's great writers, she paints a vivid, beautiful, and stark portrait of a country through the eyes of three middle-class Dublin families.

Booker Award winner Anne Enright is one of the best contemporary fiction writers today. She left a lasting impression with her 2007 novel The Gathering (which is another must read), and her most recent book, The Green Road, similarly describes the stark realities of an Irish family and the missteps and character flaws that make them who they are today.

"Had Elizabeth Bowen been a man, she would be recognized as one of the finest novelists of the 20th century," wrote famed Irish novelist John Banville. Bowen's fierce prowess in the English language and unrivaled understanding of Ireland's mysterious beauty is most obvious in The Last September, a book about life in 1920s County Cork. It grapples with life in Ireland on the brink of freedom from British rule.

You can't discuss Irish fiction without mentioning Edna O'Brien's legacy. Never one to shy away from controversial topics (she's even had books banned in Ireland), she chronicles Irish life like no other. In her most recent novel, The Little Red Chairs, a mysterious stranger arrives in a small Irish town, and what happens next is pure chaos.

Most people are familiar with Emma Donoghue's breakout work, The Room, but Donoghue's 2016 masterpiece The Wonder is a spell-binding psychological thriller that will leave readers questioning everything they know about love and evil. It's the story of a British nurse assigned to watch over a child who claims she has not eaten in months, but instead lives off the "manna of heaven."

If you're still looking for that thriller that makes your heart race like The Girl on the Train, look no further than In the Woods. On a 1984 Summer night in Dublin, three children never return home from the woods, and when they finally find one missing child, he can't remember a single detail of what happened. But, 20 years later, he grows up to be a detective assigned to a similar case that helps him remember the memories he buried.

Celebrated Irish writer Maeve Binchy follows a group of university students in Dublin for her 2006 book Circle of Friends. It's heart-warming and magnetic, and Binchy's ability to write her characters will have you feeling like you're a part of the group. But be forewarned: this is an emotional roller coaster.

This debut novel won the Baileys Women's Prize For Fiction thanks to Eimear McBride's scathing and tortured writing. A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing depicts a young girl coming to grips with her brother's brain tumor as well as her own sexuality. The gripping stream-of-conscious style prose will keep its hold on your memory for years to come.

Sarah Jessica Parker referred to this book as "fecking brilliant," so you know it's good. The foundation of The Glorious Heresies centers around grandmother Maureen Phelan, who accidentally murders a man in her own home. The repercussions of this killing transcend multiple generations of families in an Irish town. The plot will have you hooked, but the characters will have you dazzled.