AN IRISH TIMES DEBUT AUTHOR TO LOOK OUT FOR 2025 A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST DEBUT OF 2025
Mairéad works all hours in a run-down West End theatre's wardrobe department her whole
existence made up of threads and needles running errands to mend shoes fixing broken zips and
handwashing underwear. She must also do her best to avoid groping hands backstage and the
terrible bullying of the show's producer. But despite her skill and growing experience half
of Mairéad remains in her windy hedge-filled home in Ireland and the life she abandoned
there. In noughties London she has the potential to be somebody completely new - why then
does she feel so stuck? Between the bustling side streets of Soho and the wet grass of Leitrim
and Donegal Mairéad is caught running from the girl she was but unable to reveal the woman
she'd hoped to become. Told with rare honesty and equal measures of warmth and bite The
Wardrobe Departmen t is a story about reckoning with the past finding the courage to change
the present - and asking what comes next.
