From vicious rival brothers to desperate single mothers, frisky newlyweds to frigid life partners, Patrick McGinley covers all kinds of Irish (or simply human) relationship in this collection of short stories. In fourteen stories, some brief glimpses of an hour in the life, some longer explorations of years of growing animosity, McGinley explores the ties that bind us: the bond of family, unbreakable even when we wish it severed; the financial and emotional connections we make with our neighbours and colleagues; even the brief and tenuous link between a con artist and his prey.

In turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, sweet and savage, Irish Portraits gives the reader a first-hand look at the lives of its characters, a handful of countrymen with one thing in common: their humanity.