Irish Biography

Elizabeth Shaw, who has until now remained all but unknown in her native Ireland, was one of the most celebrated children's authors in East Germany, producing a series of masterful...

When Fergus Farrell suffered a spinal cord injury in October 2018, doctors gave him a zero per cent chance of walking again. What followed was a journey marked by an...

Tim Cramer describes himself as 'an unrepentant Corkman' with an abiding love of the city, its hinterland and its people. Fortunate to grow up in an idyllic urban/rural environment, he...

A searing coming-of-age memoir set in an unfamiliar world: Irish South Boston. Michael MacDonald brings us a poor and intensely insular neighbourhood which its residents agree is the "best place...

In 1846 the Crokers, a Presbyterian landlord family, flee famine-stricken West Cork aboard the Henry Clay, survive shipwreck and land in New York. There they are confronted with the grim...

Across artificial intelligence, climate change, food safety, transport and communication, the fields of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are integral to modern society. Through a selection of 46 lives...

The harrowing true story of a travelling Irish family bonded by love, broken apart by life, and then betrayed by their carers in a cruel convent in Ireland. "For those...

An entrancing story of a charmed childhood on a farm in the West of Ireland during the 1930s and early 1940s. An Irish country Childhood is a tale of times...

During her second year as an Irish government minister, Katherine Zappone's world was upended when her beloved wife, Ann Louise Gilligan, suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage, leaving her blind and...

Malachy McCourt grew up in Limerick amid death, squalor, poverty and abuse. When he went to America as a young man, he took with him a gargantuan appetite for what...

The Ireland of the inter-war years was an island of remarkable contradictions. In spite of the highly moralistic attitude of Church and State, including an official censorship of publications, there...

Woven into the story of his life and the national events of his times are the equally dramatic changes in which he participated during his twenty-seven years with the Irish...

Bryan Gallagher's reminiscences of the Ireland of his youth, first heard on Radio 4's 'Home Truths', transport you to a world of boyhood pranks, playground politics and the confusion of...

Beneath the Surface is the powerful and deeply human memoir from No.1 bestselling author and renowned mental health advocate Dr. Harry Barry. In this moving life story, Dr. Barry pulls...

For the Love of My Mother is the tragic and uplifting story of one Irish mother and her son. Born into a life of poverty and detained at the tender...

Garret FitzGerald is an economist, statistician, journalist, barrister, historian and politician who was twice Taoiseach of Ireland in the 1980s. This autobiography of an Irish Prime Minister includes political recollection...

Marie Fleming became a household name in Ireland with her trail-blazing campaign for the right to die with dignity, when she took a landmark case against the Irish State to...

A powerful and moving autobiography from a gifted writer who has been compared to Joyce and Yeats.'A book of sheer wonder. As an author he competes as an equal with...

THE IRISH TIMES BESTSELLERWhen death is a way of life . . .In A Life Among the Dead, David McGowan, Ireland's best known Funeral Director, and subject of the Award-winning...

NOW WITH AN UPDATED FOREWORD AND ADDITIONAL CONTENT'An affirmation of the power of love, kindness, courage and human resilience' - Lara Marlowe, author of Love in a Time of WarBernard...

Julia Kelly met a charismatic and successful artist, Charlie Whisker, while she was working on her first novel. He was twenty years older than her. Their relationship was passionate and...

From a childhood shaped by neglect and violence to three brutal years spent in a cold, indifferent convent, Breda O'Toole's early life was marked by abandonment. When she sought help,...

The harrowing true story of one boy's experiences in a brutal 'approved' school for young offenders in '50s London, run by Catholic monks where violence and abuse were rife. Beaten...

Delphine, long cast in the supporting role of politician's wife and mother to five children, spends her life tending to others. It's only after her husband's sudden death that she...

'I was living in a world where a priest who spoke the words of God used me for sex, and there was no-one to tell. The world where this horror...

WINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2025Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non Fiction 2025'Extraordinary and uplifting' OBSERVER'A triumphant tale of survival' FINANCIAL TIMES'An extraordinary book' LITERARY REVIEW'To read this...