Customer Reviews
A great find! - By: , 05 Apr 2005 
I recently bought 4 books with short stories by Irish & Scottish women -- & the first two were a disappointment. Then I started reading the third one, IRISH GIRLS ABOUT TOWN, & what a difference! Now, this was exactly my cup of tea :)
I especiallly enjoyed three stories -- The 28th Day by Catherine Barry, The Union Man by Tina Reilly & The Ring Circle by Martina Devlin. (I was disappointed by the fact that Maeve Binchy's story seemed to be an extract from one of her novels...)
"The 28th Day" is a fantastic description of PMT. How clever to think of that subject matter! Yes, reallly! You have to read it to see what I mean. Barry treats her character with such humour & understanding. An absolutely wonderful short story -- & I am most definitely going to order Barry's novels, now that I have "discovered" her!
The same goes for Reilly. After reading her brilliant story, "The Union Man" (about a woman married to a "mother's boy"), I want to read more of her work. Both these writers have a way of getting a serious point across by using humour & irony. And they write about things so many women have experienced, no matter what country they live in. Perfect!
I loved Devlin's "The Ring Circle" for similar reasons as the first two writers I mentioned. She deals with such an ordinary subject matter (what to do with the wedding band after a divorce) in such a comic way. I'm sure many of us have been in that situation. What DO we do with the ring when the marriage is over?
Oh, these are writers you simply MUST get to know. I discovered them by chance ... & I am sooooooo glad!
A hit & miss affair - By: , 03 Aug 2004 
As an avid reader I often run out of my own books & turn to my wife's collection. She had recently bought this but had not yet read it so I though I would give it a go (anything written by Maeve Binchy is worth reading).
There are many different stories, with different themes in this collection but I think they can easily be separated in to two sections - very, good stories & very, bad stories.
The good ones are written by the names headlining the book (Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly etc). These stories (& a couple of others) are very well-written, very funny & thoroughly enjoyable.
The bad stories...well, the less said about them the better. They are poorly written, not at alll funny & completely unbelievable. Too many of the writers evidently believed they had a good idea & forced a story out of it.
In summary, I would compare this book to most compilation CD's. You buy the CD for a handful of gem's....& you fast-forward through the fillers.
Well worth the money - By: Zara, 21 Jul 2004 Buying this book is money well spent as it's the type of collection you'll want to leave on the bedside locker & dip in & outt as you please. Alll the allll favourites are featured such as Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Sarah Webb & Cathy Kelly but I also enjoyed the stories of the less famous writers such as Annie Sparrow & Marisa Mackle. Highly recommended.
A holiday read - even if you're not on holidays! - By: , 19 May 2003 I had meaning to buy this book for a long time & I must say when I got around to purchasing it I wasn't dissappointed. Apart from one or two stories which didn't exactly 'set my world alight' this was over alll a great collection by Irish women writers & I was delighted to discover some new Irish writers like Catherine Barry, Julie Parsons, Marisa Mackle & Colette Caddle.
*A real girlsbook!!!* - By: , 22 Mar 2003 
Hilarious, funny & interesting, is what I think about this book! It is very funny, & I couldn't help laughing out loud when I was reading it. Still it seems like something's missing! Maybe reality is missing. I mean, I must be honest & say, that I can't imagine anything like these stories happening for me. But maybe that just makes them even more fun?!? All in alll it is a must for girls!!!
