Irish Booker prize winner Paul Lynch has said he was “astonished” by violent disturbances on the streets of Dublin this week, but this kind of behaviour is “always under the surface”. The author, who lives in Dublin, spoke at a Sunday press conference after he received the award during a ceremony at Old Billingsgate, London His dystopian novel Prophet Song explores what happens when his home country slides into authoritarianism. When asked what he thought about the riots in Ireland, which involved right-wing elements, Lynch said: “Like everybody else, I was astonished by it. “And at the same time, I recognise the truth that this kind of energy is always there under the surface and, I didn’t write this book to specifically say, ‘here’s a warning’, I wrote the book to articulate the message that the things that are in this book are occurring timelessly throughout the ages. “And maybe we need to deepen our own responses to that kind of idea. But at the same time, what was happening in Dublin? Well, you know, we can see it as a warning, I think we should see it was a warning.” Lynch also said he was “distinctly not a political novelist” and his book is really about “grief”, as it tells the story of a woman who has her husband taken away by the newly formed Irish secret police. He also said that “Ireland is an extraordinary country to live in” and a welcoming country. Lynch added: “It’s a great place for writers, any country that supports writers in the way that the Arts Council has supported me and many other really truly worthy Irish writers can only be a great place to live. “So I could not be more proud to be an Irish writer right now, it’s really something. “Well, you know, I think that if any of us were to look at the state of affairs from the point of view of 20 years ago, we couldn’t quite believe the modern world that we find ourselves in. “And I do think that you looked at things objectively, there is a sense of unravelling of a kind. “The question is, is what are we going to do about it and can anything be done about it? “I mean, Prophet Song is a counterfactual novel, it’s not a prophetic statement but there are resonances in it that are there for the taking for readers who want to think about these things.” He also said that “there’s layers and layers at work in my writing” and novels are complex. Lynch added: “To reduce the book down to one single message is actually pointless to a certain extent and goes against, the reason why I wrote the book, the book is actually its own answer.” He also said he was most likely to spend half of the prize, worth £50,000, on his mortgage. Lynch also said that before writing full time he had reached a point in his life where he had “exhausted all the possibilities”. He added: “There was a moment writing this book during lockdown, it was hugely challenging. I had long Covid for periods, and I’d wake up many days and I would have had just like, brain fog, and I had just, like, just fatigue, and I couldn’t work.” Read More Rishi Sunak slams Elon Musk’s ‘wrong’ remarks as antisemitism row deepens Former England footballer Ian Wright among those to collect honours What the papers say – November 27 Covid inquiry kicks off key week with Khan and Burnham giving evidence AI image generators ‘being used by children to create indecent images’ Bill to ban creation of new leasehold houses to be introduced to Parliament

Thousands of Twitter users reported problems with the social media platform this weekend, with many receiving a message saying “rate-limit exceeded” on their personal feed page meant for curated content. Many users complained of several issues over the weekend, such as disappearing timelines, an inability to retrieve or send out their own tweets or even send a direct message. Users could scroll only a limited number of times on their curated “For You” personal feed pages before hitting limits. Twitter owner and chief technology officer Elon Musk explained on Saturday that the platform was issuing temporary reading limits with verified accounts being restricted to reading 6,000 posts a day. Mr Musk said the new restriction was applied “to address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation”. The Tesla chief then later added that the “rate limits” were increasing to “8,000 for verified, 800 for unverified and 400 for new unverified”. He then followed it with another update, raising the limits to 10,000, 1,000 and 500 respectively. It remains unclear for how long the new restrictions will be in place as many users continue to face the “Rate limit exceeded. Please wait a few moments then try again” message. Mr Musk has been attempting to generate more revenue for Twitter by making changes to the platform’s policy regarding the use of its API – the system used to communicate with other services. The Tesla and SpaceX chief has previously expressed displeasure with third-party clients, including artificial intelligence firms, using Twitter’s data to train their AI models. The company has been cutting its free API support, which has effectively killed off third-party services that rely on it. Commenting on the outage, Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the UK’s professional IT body, said while data scraping may be “part of the reason”, there are likely to be “underlying technical problems” on the platform. “The alleged data scraping could well be caused by Twitter now charging exorbitant fees for API access, which may have led to a secondary market for tweet data,” he said. Mr Musk retweeted an Elon Musk parody account that said “we are all Twitter addicts and need to go outside”. “I’m doing a good deed for the world here. Also, that’s another view you just used,” the tweet read. Read More Jack Dorsey calls for ‘open internet’ as Musk imposes new reading limits on Twitter Twitter limits number of tweets people can read in a day, Elon Musk announces Is Twitter down? Thousands of users complain of issues with social media website and app Jack Dorsey calls for ‘open internet’ as Musk imposes new reading limits on Twitter Twitter limits number of tweets people can read in a day Twitter applies temporary reading limits amid ongoing problems with platform

Embattled property developer China Evergrande Group on Wednesday resolved to delay its meetings for the Hong Kong CEG

An arrest warrant has been issued for Los Angeles Chargers cornerback J

If you’ve seen Netflix’s 'Clickbait', you’ll know what we mean when we say social media can be powerful when it comes to solving crime cases

Manchester United's poor start to the season can be attributed to a lack of consistency throughout the 90

Timothée Chalamet joked he needed "a lot of auto-tune" for his singing in 'Wonka' but he enjoyed the "great learning experience" of the dance routines.

A look at who is playing on Monday Night Football in Week 5.

As star footballers line up to take Saudi money, it is easy to forget this is a phenomenon that stretches back decades. Only now, the...

The Nashville police chief says he has minimal contact with his son, who he said is a convicted felon

SAVE 49%: ExpressVPN is a high-speed service for unblocking Japanese Netflix. A one-year subscription to

Alex Palou started and finished first in the Detroit Grand Prix on Sunday, winning his second IndyCar race in less than a month and for the sixth time of his career