Review of Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin

"Can you imagine me there in the front row in Saint Peter's Square? The lesbian sister of a literal saint.”

I adored this read. From cover to cover, I could not put it down. If you lap up Irish fiction in the same way, this is an unmissable debut. Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize Discoveries Award, you know it’s going to make waves but it blew me away beyond expectation.

We’re thrown in the deep end immediately when we’re told that Jay had her first kiss with a girl on the same night her brother died. Jay grew up ten years his junior in a devoutly Catholic Irish household where her parents worshipped the God in him and, from Jay’s perspective, largely ignored her. But her brother’s life was tragically cut short during his training to be a priest and he never got to live out his dream. Years later, in his legacy, their parents are campaining for sainthood, a process that drags up Jay’s complicated feelings for the past and tears her away from her new life in London back to an Ireland that she is not sure will accept her views, her way of life, her lesbianism.

Ordinary Saints is a profoundly moving tale that grapples with grief and legacy, both of the Catholic church and of loved ones. There is a moment towards the end of the novel where Jay sits down for a talk with her father that reveals things they’ve never spoken about before and it’s written so intensely that it jumps off the page and I felt like I was watching it happen in my own living room. Similarly, Jay’s taut relationship with her depressed mother is so deftly written that you feel the tension in your own body.  Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin writes familial relationships expertly and in a way that refuses to let you look away. There are glimpses into buried family secrets that feel so real because you can tell that they haven’t been buried due to any contrived mystery, it has simply just never occurred to any of them to talk to each other in such a way. And I think that sums up the dynamic perfectly here.

With gorgous prose and perfect pacing, I think this is a novel that will move the masses and I highly recommend. This one gets a badge of being one of my favourite debuts of the year so far and I will be waiting eagerly for whatever Niamh writes next. A true pleasure to read.

Reviewed by Abi

Published on 15/04/25 by Bonnier Books

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