Irish Biography

In Carlo Gebler's early childhood, his relationship with his father, Ernest, was a disaster. A man of the left, Ernest's politics had been "hammered out in the 1930s". His early...

This is the autobiography of actor, storyteller and seanchai, Eamon Kelly. It takes its title from the fact that the young Kelly was apprenticed to his father, a wheelwright and...

Lady Gregory, Abbey Theatre founder and patron of W. B. Yeats, writer and daughter of a Galway landowner, became a key figure in the Irish Revival.This new biography investigates Augusta...

THE LADY BEST BOOKS OF 2024A haunted record of a life devoted to the visual art of the cinema and the written word, by Ireland's greatest director and one of...

Cynthia Owen grew up in Ireland, went to the local convent school, said her prayers and took her first communion with all the other girls in her class. But behind...

Laura and Lynn's Story recounts the heartbreaking tale of the McKenna family, who lost both daughters to illness 20 months apart. Laura, aged four, died very quickly and peacefully after...

"A fascinating trawl through a very personal history." - Irish Gazette "A stirring story of Easter Week that has gone untold until now." - Irish Voice It's April, 1916. Dublin...

In 1962, Ed Deevy, a young Irishman who had grown up as a farm boy in County Laois, ar-rived in Louisiana as a newly-minted Catholic priest. After seven years working...

Remembering Killaloe, by well-known retired barrister and legal author Henry Murdoch, is a personal, entertaining, and informative account of living in twin Irish heritage towns, Killaloe and Ballina, over 50...

'Harding's prose style is fluid and fluent ... unflinching, merciless honesty' Sunday IndependentTo mark his 70th birthday Michael Harding travelled to Spain to walk part of the Camino de Santiago....

In the first authorized biography of W. B. Yeats for over fifty years, Roy Foster sheds new light on one of the most complex and fascinating lives of the late...

On 13 May 1988 Father Bernard Lynch was indicted on five charges of child abuse. On 21 April 1989 the prosecution case collapsed, as it became apparent that the evidence...

Just over a month after the 1921 truce that ended Ireland's fight with Britain, Ernie O'Malley longed for a return to war. Ten months later he got what he wanted...

In June 1974 from the stage of the Peacock Theatre in Dublin, Michael Hartnett announced his intention to stop writing poetry in English. He said he would write exclusively in...

His work has long been recognised for its innovation and his reputation for clashes with the so-called gardening 'establishment' are famous. He has won many accolades including Silver Gilt at...

A breakthrough novel for one of the most gifted of the current generation of Irish writers.

A Sunday Times Book of the YearAs featured on the BBC Radio 2 Book ClubDr James Barry: Inspector General of Hospitals, army surgeon, duellist, reformer, ladykiller, eccentric. He performed the...

Irish singing star Daniel O'Donnell's mother, Julia, grew up on a remote island off the northwest coast of Ireland, going barefoot and doing hard labour as as child during the...

A Sunday Times Bestseller March 2022 (Ireland)Soon, the lockdown would start. People would die alone, without any proper ceremony. Charlotte's death would be washed away, the first drop in a...

Based on personal testimony, this book was written to show what the term "domestic violence" really means to the thousands of women, children - and sometimes men - who suffer...

An exuberant Angela's Ashes meets When Did You Last See Your Father?; an intoxicating memoir of Ireland and being Irish (and Anglo-Irish as well) from one of literature's most flamboyant...

'An unforgettable, freewheeling masterclass'MICHAEL MAGEE, Nero Book Award-winning author of Close to Home'Funny, nerve-wracking and utterly compelling'COLIN BARRETT, Booker Prize-longlisted author of Wild Houses'Extraordinary... A writer with a rare gift....

'An unforgettable, freewheeling masterclass'Michael Magee, Nero Book Award-winning author of Close to Home 'Funny, nerve-wracking and utterly compelling'Colin Barrett, Booker Prize-longlisted author of Wild Houses'Extraordinary... A writer with a rare...

Boldly combining the highly personal with the brilliantly scholarly, "In the Dark Room" explores the question of how memory works emotionally and culturally. It is narrated through the prism of...

Takes a critical look at the international aid industry. This book covers topics such as the Peace Corps, debt relief, the aid business, health, food and cultural practices, among many...

Before the 1970s flipped the switch to colour, Irish children ere raised in a world of black, white and an awful lot of grey. But kids, being kids, found endless...

Irish construction workers in post-war Britain are celebrated in song and story. Donall MacAmhlaigh kept a diary as he worked the sites, danced in Irish halls, drank in Irish pubs...

This revised pictorial biography celebrates the life of Tom Crean, a great Irish hero of Antarctic exploration in an age of epics of endurance and survival against the odds. Tom...

Originally published in 1992, this childhood memoir, revised and augmented, now has the status of a modern Irish classic. On his first trip abroad, Adrian Kenny observes that the signs...