Who wrote the novel 'The Commitments'?

The Commitments (1987) (originally to be called The Partitions) is a novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle, and is the first episode in The Barrytown Trilogy. It is a tale about a group of unemployed young people in the north side of Dublin, Ireland, who start a soul band.

The Barrytown Trilogy consists of the first three novels by Irish writer Roddy Doyle and is first published as a trilogy in 1992.

The three novels are: The Commitments (1987, film 1991), The Snapper (1990, film 1993), The Van (1991, shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize, film 1996). All three novels are focused on the Rabbittes, a working-class family from Dublin.

Two friends — Derek Scully and "Outspan" Foster — get together to form a band, but soon realise that they don't know enough about the music business to get much further than their small neighbourhood in the Northside of Dublin. To solve this problem, they recruit a friend they'd had from school, Jimmy Rabbitte, to be their manager. He accepts graciously, but only if he can make fundamental changes to the group, the first being the sacking of the third, and mutually disliked, member — their synth player. After this, Rabbitte gets rid of their name, making them "The Commitments" (stating "All the good 60s bands started with a 'the'") and, most importantly, forming them from another synthpop group to the face of what he thinks will be the Dublin-Soul revolution. ("Yes, Lads. You'll be playing Dublin Soul!").