Eileen Battersby

Eileen Battersby is the chief literary critic of The Irish Times. She has sometimes divided opinion, having been described by John Banville as "the finest fiction critic we have", while attracting the ire of Eugene McCabe after she famously gave Dermot Healy an unfavourable review in 2011. Her first novel, Teethmarks on My Tongue, is being published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2016.

Battersby was born in California. She graduated with honours in English and History from University College Dublin, and went on to receive an honours MA on American writer Thomas Wolfe. She began reviewing books and sports writing which led her into a career in journalism as a staff arts writer with The Irish Times, eventually becoming the chief Literary Correspondent. She has written on archaeology, history, architecture, geography and horses and has championed fiction in translation.

Battersby published a memoir, Ordinary Dogs: A Story of Two Lives (2011), about her two rescue dogs. Her collection Second Readings (2010) features 52 of her reviews. She has discussed Kafka on RTÉ Radio 1.

Battersby has won the National Arts Journalist of the Year award four times.She also won National Critic of the Year in 2012.

In 2011, controversy ensued when Battersby found Dermot Healy's novel Long Time, No See wanting. Her unfavourable review prompted an angry letter of protest from Eugene McCabe who castigated her for disemboweling "one of the great masters of Irish writing."

Eileen Battersby has been reviewing fiction since 1984, the year J.G Ballard was expected to win the then Booker Prize with Empire of the Sun - but didn't.

The relationship that Battersby has with animals is prominent in her writing. A quirky characteristic that has been noticed and enjoyed by many. In Ordinary Dogs, Battersby celebrates Bilbo and Frodo (her two mongrel dogs) with rare passion and insight. Battersby has shown that, for certain people, there is more integrity in the unconditional relationship with animals than in much of what human society can offer. "But what I like most is the author's pluck/ Other than with her daughter, her most conspicuously successful relationships have been with two mongrel dogs- and, like [J.R] Ackerley, she's not afraid to admit it"

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