Beautiful Day: Forty Years of Irish Rock (co-authored with Sean Campbell) was published in 2005 and Our House: The Representation of Domestic Space in Contemporary Culture (co-edited with Jo Croft) in 2006.
In 2016, Smyth published Celtic Tiger Blues: Music and Modern Irish Identity (Routledge, 2016), which included analyses of work by James Joyce, the Pogues, Bernard MacLaverty, The Waterboys, Tim Robinson, and Augusta Holmès.
In February 2021, the British Library released Smyth's Sailor Song: The Shanties and Ballads of the High Seas with illustrations by the Scottish artist Jonny Hannah.
The Liverpool-Irish Literary Theatre is currently developing a piece entitled A Drink with Brendan Behan, based on the life (and death) of that famous Irish writer.
In October 2018, Smyth’s cabaret adaptation of the album Murder Ballads’’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds premiered at the Liverpool Royal Court.
It returned to the Royal Court in May 2019, before shows in London (the Other Palace, June), Manchester (Sale Waterside Arts Centre, October 31) and Sheffield (Theatre Deli, November 1), plus a twelve-night run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August.
Once again featuring Esther Smyth on vocals, the album included settings of Yeats' poems such as 'Brown Penny', 'September 1913' and 'Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites' as well as new versions of 'The Fiddler of Dooney' and 'Down by the Salley Gardens'.