My Blog

Mayo football across almost six decades, culminating in the historic All-Ireland success of 2026, and Liam Horan’s own experience of following the county through those years are at the heart of I Can See It Still, a new book by the Mayo author and journalist. Horan will launch the book at Mayo County Library in Castlebar on Friday, 16 October 2026 (7.45pm, all welcome).

There are advantages to not having published a book yet. For one thing, you can still change it. For another, apparently, people can already read it. I received a lovely email this week from somebody purporting to be from a book club in Limerick. The writer had discovered I Can See It Still and, it seems, had been profoundly affected by the experience.

A very well-known writer of my acquaintance once said that a key bridge for any writer to cross is to admit, to themselves and to the world, that they are a writer. A writer, when presented with an opportunity to out themselves, will often hesitate. They’ll say they do a bit of writing, or that they dabble, or that they turn their hand to it from time to time.

The Saw Doctors were formed from the remnants of other bands in the mid-1980s, out of Tuam. Growing up just over the Mayo/Galway border in Ballinrobe, I felt like I had stumbled into the maternity ward for the birth of a new musical dimension.

There’s a popular line about writing: you do it for yourself. And it’s true, up to a point. It would be difficult to sustain the long hours and the figuring out merely on the faint promise of producing a bestseller.

I’m usually part of the body of the room at the monthly Open Mic in the Linenhall Arts Centre in Castlebar, wondering, in a last-minute surge of self-doubt, if I should change what I’m planning to read. Last night, however, I was temporarily promoted from the ranks and installed at the front as the featured reader. It felt like being called up from the subs’ bench, but thankfully there was no major deficit to be rescued.

Today is World Book Day - the parents of my young neighbour Róisín sent me these pictures before she left for St Joseph's Primary School, Ballinrobe, this morning.

For a long time, the use of the word ‘conflict’ in writing advice bothered me. Stories tend to need conflict, we're told. Otherwise, they can wither and die.

For writers and readers in this part of the world (Co. Mayo, west of Ireland), the next few days offer two good reasons to leave the house and sit in a room with people of similar disposition.

A novel – in my admittedly limited experience* – feels like it gets built as much as it gets written. When I start, there isn’t a grand design**. No finished sketch pinned up on the wall. There’s simply a sense that something could stand here -  maybe a town, a character, a tension humming beneath the surface.

On Tuesday I returned to the University of Limerick to speak with the current MA in Creative Writing students. It was a strange and wonderful experience, having graduated only last month. I was part of a panel of five former students who have become published authors since completing the course. The other four were Neil Tully, June O'Sullivan, Gráinne O'Brien and Sharon Guard – see below for links to their work.

Whether you like it or not, promoting your own book is part of the job. Every writer does it at some level. Most writers work very hard at it. There may be different tones, different tactics and different levels of comfort, but nobody gets a free pass. If a book is to find readers, the writer has to help it along.

For a long time, I thought writing a novel meant knowing where you were going before you began. Plot it out. Understand the structure. Know what happens in the end, and preferably in the middle too. That belief probably delayed me writing a novel by years.

A little trick I have found to be very useful when I am struggling to create a character who will serve my needs is to change something dramatic about them, such as their sex. Often, when starting out on the process of writing a character I have a real person in mind. It’s inevitable. The characters I write emerge from my experiences.

When people learn that I studied for a master’s in creative writing at the University of Limerick, where internationally renowned figures such as Joseph O’Connor and Donal Ryan are among the teachers, they invariably want to know more. What did I learn from them?

Last night (Thursday, 11 December, 2025) I had the pleasure of being the very first guest author at the newly opened The Novel Bean, Cathal Kelly’s eclectic new book-cum-coffee-cum-gift-cum-so-much-else store in Swinford. I was there to read from – and be interviewed about – my debut novel, On The Way Out. Huge credit to Cathal, Róisín, Seán and everyone involved for hosting such a generous and welcoming night. The place was buzzing. There was that hum you get when people have gathered because they are happy to be out to enjoy a new event in a new setting.

Blessed are the early readers – and the late ones too – for they shall spot the untightened gears and pulleys that might otherwise derail the hurtling train. I retained quite the retinue of early and late readers for my debut novel On The Way Out: Barry Maguire, Brian Joyce, Carolina Batista, Colm Burtchaell, Conor Hughes, Declan Varley, Dymphna Culhane, Eamon Loughlin, Eilín O’Carroll, Emma Horan, Helen Bree, John Culhane, Kellie Thornton, Marie Shannon, Mary Halligan, Maurice Horan, Michael Horan, Michelle Horan, Mike Quinn, Noreen Gilligan, Pat Conway, Peter Browne, Sinead Horan, Siobhan Corcoran, Stephen Carolan, Suzanne Walsh, Shirley Byrne and Veronica Keys.

Since publishing On The Way Out in November 2025, I’ve been very happy with the reactions it has drawn from acclaimed writers, judges of the Gerald Griffin Competition and readers who encountered the book in entirely their own way. As a debut novelist, I’m grateful for every response, and I’d like to share some of them here. I do so mindful of the fact that there are undoubtedly some for whom the book doesn’t work – no book pleases everyone.

I’m delighted to be the guest for the first-ever Writer Event at The Novel Bean in Swinford on Thursday, December 11, where I’ll be their inaugural Featured Author of the Month. The event starts at 7.30pm, and everyone is welcome.

It’s a real honour to bring my debut novel, On The Way Out, to a new local venue that’s quickly becoming a hub for readers and writers.

How does a writer interact with their editor? That’s a question I often get asked. My editor for On The Way Out was my work colleague at the Western Development Commission, Aisling Moroney. And just as I was a debut novelist, she was a debut novel editor. Why not!