Nuala O’Connor was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1970, and lives in County Galway, Ireland. She is a member of Aosdána. Nuala graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a BA in the Irish language; Dublin City University with a MA in Translation Studies; University of Galway with a Certificate in Women’s Studies.
Her most recent novel is Seaborne, a re-telling of the life of Irish pirate Anne Bonny. It was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the 2024 Irish Book Awards and nominated for the Dublin Literary Award 2025.
Nuala’s fifth poetry collection Menagerie was published in March 2025 by Arlen House.
In late 2022, Nuala won the writing.ie Irish Short Story of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards for her story ‘This Small Giddy Life’, from the New Island anthology, A Little Unsteadily Into Light.
Nuala’s fifth novel NORA (Harper Perennial/New Island, 2021), about Nora Barnacle, wife and muse to James Joyce, was published to critical acclaim in 2021 in the USA, Ireland, the UK, Germany, Croatia, the Netherlands, Estonia and Poland. NORA was named as a Top 10 2021 historical novel by the New York Times and was the One Dublin One Book choice for 2022. Nuala curated the ‘Love, Says Bloom’ exhibition at MoLI, on the Joyce family, for #Ulysses100.
Nuala is currently writing a memoir about late-diagnosed autism. Her seventh novel will be published in 2027.
Find Nuala on Instagram: @nuala_oconnor
Novels
SEABORNE
Short Story Collections
Poetry Collections
Menagerie
