With lyric grace and meditative clarity, Phantom Gang offers a daring dissection of civilizational violence in a variety of contexts from the intimate atavisms and inequalities of Irish history to the insidious growth of the global Big Tech economy in the present day alongside deep, sensually delicate explorations of broken love and salvaged memories. Honouring the work of a range of writers and photographers, including John Clare (1793-1864), Martin Chambi (1891-1973), Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), and Gerda Taro (1910-1937), these poems unsettle the boundaries between past and present, elegy and tribute, folkloric remembrance and political reportage, interweaving each with all to create a compelling vision of a world in motion and a consciousness alive to change - as spectral voices and still-living presences seep "into the open echo-chamber / of poetry", casting light on the inner and outer landscapes of the poet's life in time. Following his acclaimed first collection, The Buried Breath, O'Rourke here expands and enriches the thematic concerns of his early work to accommodate new forms of portraiture and moral questioning, while further honing the "clean-boned" music of his poetic style, lit always by a profound emotional charge. Phantom Gang confirms O'Rourke as a leading new voice in Irish poetry.

A week-to-view diary, this elegant and practical publication gathers extracts from twenty years of outstanding writing from Irish Pages (the island's premier literary journal) and The Irish Pages Press ("British Book Award Small Press of the Year 2022, Island of Ireland").With an array of distinguished Irish and international authors, The Irish Pages Diary 2024 is an essential holiday gift for readers, writers, and anyone interested in the life of the mind and the state of the world.

The Diary features classic texts by celebrated authors such as Seamus Heaney, Kathleen Jamie, Susan Sontag, Patricia Craig, Slavenka Drakulic, Julia Kristeva and Chinua Achebe, as well as the remarkable work of emerging writers living in Ireland. The Diary includes quotations in English, Scots, Scots Gaelic and Irish, highlighting the linguistic range across Ireland and Britain.
Offering illuminating insights throughout the year, the Diary pairs literary passages with corresponding holidays, historical anniversaries and elegant illustrations.

Irish Pages and its authors inhabit "the space outside" the Pale of the Received - business-as-usual in all its (especially Western) forms: literary, intellectual, cultural, social, political. The Diary celebrates this emphasis on original imaginative engagement with the world and its dilemmas, and is intended especially for all those readers for whom ethical issues count.

Similar to the Faber & Faber Poetry Diary, The LRB Diary or The Redstone Diary, The Irish Pages Diary offers a unique combination of Irish and international literary perspectives.