Ruth Gilligan

Having set aside a new novel, her fourth published book, Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan, is based around the history of Irish Jews, and was published by Atlantic Books in July 2016 (UK / Ireland). It received very favourable reviews, including numerous comparisons to James Joyce and Colum McCann. In 2017, it was published in the US by Tin House, and in Israel by Penn Israel. Gilligan has mentioned work on a follow-up book with links to the Beef Tribunal.

In 2014 she earned her PhD in English from the University of Exeter.

In January 2009, Gilligan was announced as the youngest ever recipient of an O'Reilly Foundation Scholarship to pursue advanced studies in English literature.

Her third book was launched in Blackrock, Co. Dublin in August 2009, following which she discussed her work, scholarship and GB Olympic fencing boyfriend Alex O'Connell, to whom the book is dedicated, in a live TV interview.

From 2009-2010 she attended Yale University, earning an MA in English Literature. From 2010-2011 she was enrolled on the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia.

Gilligan is married to lawyer and former Olympic fencer on the Great Britain team, Alex O'Connell. They met in 2008, became engaged in 2016, and married in County Wicklow in 2017. They now live in Highbury, London.

At second level, Gilligan attended St. Andrew's College, Booterstown, and while there, from age 12 to age 16, she played Laura Halpin in the Irish soap opera Fair City, and wrote her first novel, Forget as a Transition Year secondary school project. After reading and editing by successful novelist Patricia Scanlan, and extensive rewriting, the novel was published in 2006 in the UK and Ireland, reaching number one on the Irish Bestsellers' List, making her the youngest person in Ireland ever to have done so.

Ruth Gilligan (born 1988) is an Irish writer, journalist and university lecturer, born in Dublin, Ireland.