What is "quirke"

Quirke is a British- Irish crime drama television series that was first broadcast on BBC One and RTÉ One in 2014. The three-part series is based on the Quirke novels by John Banville, writing under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, and was adapted by Andrew Davies and Conor McPherson.

The Quirke series of crime novels, written by Irish novelist John Banville under the pen name Benjamin Black, centers on the titular character, a pathologist in 1950s Dublin. The series is published by Henry Holt & Co. in the U.S. The first novel, Christine Falls, was first released by Picador in the U.K. in 2006; it was published in the U.S. a year later.

Banville has stated that he drew from his experiences growing up in Dublin to inform the Quirke series: