The Fever Wards (Salt, 2010)

In times of trouble, strange works appear, pale and uncanny as mushrooms overnight.
Aidan Higgins

Lushly decadent yet simply poetic... it reminds one of a rare orchid - beautiful, unnatural and poisonous.
The Sunday Press

The Escape Artist (Smith/Doorstop, 2006)

There is a mastery in the handling of the prose rhythms which I find exciting. This young writer is about his proper business ... the rendering of the external world in the right words and with the right tunes. it is in order for an ageing writer, in a valediction to Irish readers, to essay a prophesy about Irish letters. Mr Rooney will, I think, be a credit to them.
Anthony Burgess

Padraig Rooney’s short antiphon between French lessons is slight, but elegant and evocative.
Augustine Martin

In the Bonsai Garden (Raven Arts Press, 1988)

A consummate lover of language and a master of atmosphere and the telling detail.
World of Hibernia

Rooney’s poetry is subtly immediate, quietly evocative...

Carrie Etter in The Warwick Review