Michael Symmons Roberts’s fourth book of poetry, Corpus, was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize, and the Griffin International Prize. His sixth collection, Drysalter, was the winner of both the Forward Prize and the Costa Poetry Prize in 2013. He collaborated with Paul Farley on Edgelands (Cape/Vintage) and will do so again in The Deaths of the Poets (Cape, 2017). He has also worked many times with the composer James MacMillan. He has published two novels, and is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Michael Symmons Roberts

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Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly is broke and out of love. His wife has gone to America, taking his daughter with him; his mother has become a celebrity chef on daytime television, with a particular skill for handling phallic ingredients; and his father continues to languish in Mountjoy Jail. 
 
To cap it all, Immaculata, a Nigerian girl whom Sorcha has been sponsoring by direct debit for fifteen years, has turned up on his doorstep. Things couldn't get worse. 
 
But the long road back begins high in the Pyrenees, in the tax haven of Andorra, where Ross must spread the Gospel of rugby to the strange, primitive natives who have only ever heard of soccer, skiing and duty free shopping. There, he meets Conchita, a beautiful, sultry psychoanalyst, who persuades him to look inwards and find out what it is that makes him tick. Sorry, thick.

Mr S and the Secrets of Andorra's Box

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly thought he had it all: 
 
Nice gaff, cool cor, plenty of dosh, a stake in Dublin's trendiest nightclub and a face that made boyfriends jealous. To say nothing of a beautiful wife and kids ... 
 
All that remained was for him to totally fock it up: 
 
And I mean, totally ... 
 
But did he see it coming? Of course not - too busy using his killer lines on the Seoige sisters: 
 
And then it hit me, all at once, on a lonely night in the Ice Bar ...

This Champagne Mojito is the Last Thing I Own

So there I was roysh, life focked, reputation focked, finances focked - 
everything completely focked, roysh, and we're talking big time. 
And it's all Fionn's fault, basically. He's the four-eyed focker who told me that, like, the first time you do it, roysh, you're firing blanks. Like an unloaded Uzi - 
seriously impressive, hard as fock and totally ready for action, but the safety's, like, on, you know. Well that was a pile of stinking turds for storters. And of course it's muggins here who ends up with the kid - life is SO focking unfair. On top of all that, roysh, the goys stort to, like, totally lose it - JP has gone all Jesus on my orse, Oisinn is basically trying to fock over Interpol and Christian is talking about weddings and, I don't know, love and stuff. I mean, I am seriously beginning to feel like I am the only good-looking, loaded, sane goy in the whole of, like, Dublin.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress

A love affair born in rural Ireland! Two mismatched lovers, locked in a relationship that will change both of them . . . forever! 
 
 Ross O'Carroll-Kelly was brought up to believe that Gaelic games were invented for people too stupid to understand the laws of rugby. Little did he know that one day he would become a legend of Kerry football. 
 
 But then, his life has taken a lot of unexpected twists and turns. 
 
 His father is the Taoiseach of the country. His wife is an actual Government Minister. And his suddenly teenage daughter is heading for the Gaeltacht - and her very first rugby boyfriend. 
 And then there's Marianne . . . 
 
 Of course, Ross was too busy becoming a Gaelic football star to realise that his family - like the entire country - was being pushed towards a cliff edge. And he was the only man capable of saving Ireland's democracy. 
 
 Which is just like, 'Fooooooock!'

Normal Sheeple

Fame. Fortune. Screaming girls. The adoration of strangers. I've had it all before, yet nothing could have prepared this Horny Little Devil for his new life in the City of Angels. Sacked as the coach of the Andorra rugby team and on the run from the sister I never knew I had, I decided to head west, vowing to win back my wife and daughter from a risk assessor predicting economic doom for the world. Imagine my shock when I discovered that my old dear, on a nationwide book tour, was already busy charming America out of its collective elasticated pants. 
 
With Trevion, a 1991 Gulf War-veteran-turned-celebrity-Svengali, on my side, not to mention my brand new bromance with a gym instructor called Harvey, I was determined to become more famous than even her. But one nose job and one abdominal resculpt later, I no longer knew where reality ended and reality TV began ...

Rhino What You Did Last Summer

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly thought he knew all he needed to about women's bodies ... 
 
So there I was, roysh, in a state of basically very blissful ignorance, when suddenly Sorcha's up the Damien and I have to listen to, like, women's stuff. 
 
And now he's getting a biology lesson he could have SO lived without ... 
 
I am telling you, roysh, I never even knew nipples could crack and I was very happy not knowing it. I mean, all I knew about the whole scenario was six seconds of seriously good loving, and now I'm basically expected to be an expert on how to, like, breathe like Dorth Vader and deal with baby turds. 
 
Sometimes, life just isn't fair to the babe magnet supremo ... 
 
This is SO not good for my rep - but do you think Sorcha even, like, cares about that? Not focking likely!

Should Have Got Off at Sydney Parade

I woke up from a coma to a country that had changed beyond recognition and the gords waiting to talk to me. 
 
They were obviously pretty interested in finding out who shot me. The problem was that I couldn't actually remember. The entire incident was a basic blank. 
 
The good news was that whoever pulled the trigger had missed my vital organs by inches - including the most vital one of all. I decided there and then that I wasn't going to waste another minute of my life. There were thousands of beautiful women out there who had never known the pleasure of my company - and that was going to change, the minute my wounds healed. 
 
But the path to hot love seldom runs smoothly. I had problems to deal with. A daughter who hated my basic guts. A son who was growing up way too fast. A soon-to-be-ex-wife who was resorting to increasingly desperate measures to stop the bank from repossessing the house. Oh, and the Gords were having one or two problems believing my story ...

The Shelbourne Ultimatum

Sorcha had thrown me out of the family home - this time apparently for good. And yet that was the least of my worries ... 
 
My old dear was in prison, accused of murdering her second husband. My sons were showing an unhealthy interest in - someone call social services - soccer! And my daughter wanted everyone to call her Eddie. But don't even go there! 
 
On top of all that, a blond wig discovered in a dusty attic, had given my old man delusions of power. Suddenly, he was running for election, promising to tear up the bailout deal and take Ireland out of Europe. And that's to say nothing of his secret plan for Ireland's second city ... 
 
But shush! Don't mention the wall!

Operation Trumpsformation

Sportsman. Lover. Bon vivant. Cad. Ross O'Carroll-Kelly is many things to many people. But ten years after he lifted the Leinster Schools Senior Cup, Ireland's most beloved rogue remains one of its most misunderstood figures. His accomplishments on the rugby field - and in the bedroom - remain the stuff of legend, but the truth about him remains hidden by the accretion of myth. 
 
Now, for the first time, the lid is lifted on the enigma that is South Dublin's most eligible married man. In more than a hundred interviews with his family and friends - those who've loved him, hated him and slept with him - the first ever composite portrait of the Celtic Tiger's most famous cub emerges. 
 
From the mother who didn't want him to the father who wanted him too much, from the friends who shared his misadventures to the women who shared his bed - or, failing that, a back alley or bus shelter - this searingly honest biography fills in all the blanks in the life of the self-styled Cock of Foxrock.

We Need To Talk About Ross

For everyone else things may be shrouded in gloom but amidst the splendour of our Killiney mansion, Honalee, life goes on. 
 
I've decided that it's time to possibly do right by Sorcha and put our marriage back together. Meanwhile my son has hitched his future to a family of commoners, my old dear is involved in a dodgy love affair, and my daughter has turned into an insufferable little madam. Oh, yeah, and I'm about to become a grandfather at 31. 
 
Suddenly I'm wresting with duty, loyalty ... and the thousands of women out there who still desire the pleasure of my company.

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