A train journey prompts a flow of memories – a perfect childhood garden, a father obsessed with catching animals, the background noise of the Troubles – sensations retold, felt again at second-hand. Weaving through early-morning milk runs, the effects of redundancy, intense evangelical meetings, dressing up, and the desire for literary enlightenment, these essays contemplate how our experiences make us who we are.
Rooted in his recollections of growing up in 1980s Belfast, Colin Graham traces connections across his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and tells the story of his fractured relationship with his father. In a vivid series of reconstructions, Sensation examines the entangled elements of a life.
Colin Graham’s books include Ideologies of Epic, Deconstructing Ireland, and (as @BorderIrish) I am the Border, So I am. His book Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography won the Michael J. Durkan Prize and was an Observer Photography Book of the Month. His fiction and memoir-essays have appeared in the Dublin Review, the Edinburgh Review, and elsewhere, and he was formerly editor of the Irish Review. Graham presents the My Identity podcast for ARINS and the Royal Irish Academy, and farms sheep in the Dublin mountains. He is Professor of English at Maynooth University.
Available to pre-order!
Author photo: Finn Richards
Cover design: Tom Etherington
Publication date: September 2026
ISBN: 978-1-9161509-8-0
RRP: €15.00
Publicity: Peter O’Connell, peter@peteroconnellmedia.com
A train journey prompts a flow of memories – a perfect childhood garden, a father obsessed with catching animals, the background noise of the Troubles – sensations retold, felt again at second-hand. Weaving through early-morning milk runs, the effects of redundancy, intense evangelical meetings, dressing up, and the desire for literary enlightenment, these essays contemplate how our experiences make us who we are.
Rooted in his recollections of growing up in 1980s Belfast, Colin Graham traces connections across his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and tells the story of his fractured relationship with his father. In a vivid series of reconstructions, Sensation examines the entangled elements of a life.
Colin Graham’s books include Ideologies of Epic, Deconstructing Ireland, and (as @BorderIrish) I am the Border, So I am. His book Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography won the Michael J. Durkan Prize and was an Observer Photography Book of the Month. His fiction and memoir-essays have appeared in the Dublin Review, the Edinburgh Review, and elsewhere, and he was formerly editor of the Irish Review. Graham presents the My Identity podcast for ARINS and the Royal Irish Academy, and farms sheep in the Dublin mountains. He is Professor of English at Maynooth University.
Available to pre-order!
Author photo: Finn Richards
Cover design: Tom Etherington
Publication date: September 2026
ISBN: 978-1-9161509-8-0
RRP: €15.00
Publicity: Peter O’Connell, peter@peteroconnellmedia.com
