Irish Biography

Although they have become more frequent in recent years, Irish political memoirs are still relatively rare. Even rarer still are political memoirs that still are frank, newsworthy and fun, like...

In late 2018, Michael Harding was in a hotel room in Blanchardstown experiencing severe pains in his chest. He eventually phoned an ambulance and was admitted to hospital, suffering from...

The intensely moving memoir of Patrick Maguire, one of the 'Maguire Seven' wrongly imprisoned as a teenager for making bombs for the IRA. On the night of October 5 1974,...

'A compelling memoir. Absorbing and graced with a deceptive lightness of touch, [Hanging with the Elephant] is clever and brilliantly pieced together. Harding writes like an angel' Sunday TimesFrom the...

In The Kick, poet Richard Murphy has constructed, from astonishingly detailed diaries kept over the course of five decades, a unique memoir of his life and times. The book is...

Mary McEvoy, one of Ireland's best-loved actresses, lived for many years with undiagnosed depression. From the outside looking in, she was a successful, confident woman, making strides in her career,...

Executed in Kilmainham Gaol on 8 May 1916, Michael Mallin had commanded a garrison of rebels in St Stephen's Green and the College of Surgeons during Easter Week. He was...

Samuel Beckett was one of the towering figures of twentieth-century literature; he was also famously reclusive. Here, in these intimate interviews conducted by his biographer, James Knowlson, Beckett and his...

'If you're interested in Dublin, or if you're interested in the novelist John Banville, or if you're interested in radiantly superb sentences about whatever - I'm all three - then...

In 1993, aged twenty, Carmel Mc Mahon left Ireland for New York, carrying two suitcases and a ton of unseen baggage. It took years, and a bitter struggle with alcohol...

This is the story of John McGahern's childhood; of his mother's death, his father's anger and bafflement, and his own discovery of literature and his ambition to become a writer....

In late 2018, Michael Harding was in a hotel room in Blanchardstown experiencing severe pains in his chest. He eventually phoned an ambulance and was admitted to hospital, suffering from...

'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...

In 2013, Una-Minh Kavanagh, a young journalist and content creator, was racially abused and spat upon in Dublin's city centre. Having dealt with racism throughout her young life, this proud...

Here's Me Here: Further Reflections of a Lapsed Protestant features a wide and thought-provoking selection of Glenn Patterson's writings. With his trademark wit and intelligence, Patterson offers his wry take...

Francis Brennan is known for his impeccable taste and high standards in homemaking, so there's no better man to tell you how to wash your sheets, clean your oven and...

This is the story of a boy from a small Irish village who became an adventurer, a humanitarian and a doctor to the stars. Part travelogue, part thriller, part celebrity...

Reclaiming is a brilliantly written and thought-provoking book. Through amazing story telling, Yewande highlights the richness in her culture that so many other black women can relate to. It was...

In Running from the Shadows Stephanie Hickey tells, in her own words, how she survived abuse at the hands of a trusted family member and of how running, a simple...

'When my legs went from underneath me and my breath stopped coming, just minutes before we were due to go live on The Voice, I knew this was panic at...

Fr Tony Coote was just fifty-three years old in February 2018 when he was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease. Just a few short months later, he found himself confined to...

Written in an engrossing novelesque style, yet with nothing fictional included, the book recounts, with engaging honesty, the arc of one human journey in a Belfast-based therapy from 1988-1997. To...

Emma Hannigan was thirty-two and married with two small children when she found out that she had an 85 per cent chance of developing cancer.Over the following year she had...

*A mesmeric, harrowing and uplifting childhood memoir that will open up much-needed conversations about identity and mental health*'This will blow you away'- Stylist'Joly's prose is sensitive and heartbreaking...darkly compelling' -...

The heartbreaking yet inspiring account of a young girl who suffered at the hands of nuns in the Nazareth House Convent in Northern Ireland.Frances Reilly and her sisters were abandoned...

Molly Keane (1904 - 96) was an Irish novelist and playwright (born in County Kildare) most famous for Good Behaviour which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Hailed as...

LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITINGA WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023: NATURE AND TRAVELWhen Kerri and her partner M moved to a small, remote railway cottage in the...

A true story of abuse. Three sisters. A shattered Irish childhood.Joyce, June and Paula Kavanagh were three sisters born to a family of ten in Ballyfermot, Dublin in the 1960s....

THE UPDATED BESTSELLERSergeant Maurice McCabe never set out to be a whistleblower. When, in 2008, he complained of shoddy investigations into serious crime in County Cavan, nothing could have prepared...

Molly Keane (1904 - 96) was an Irish novelist and playwright (born in County Kildare) most famous for Good Behaviour which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Hailed as...

This is the story of a young boy growing up in the West Kerry Gaeltacht in the 1940s and 1950s. It describes the fun and games of his schooldays, his...

A GARDA, A FORCED ADOPTION, A FIGHT FOR JUSTICEIn 1984, Majella Moynihan was a fresh-faced young garda recruit when she gave birth to a baby boy. Charged with breaching An...

For years acclaimed comedian Des Bishop wanted to write a show about his father. Mike Bishop was a model and actor who gave up that life to become a hard-working...

In April 2001, Trevis Gleason was a chef on the rise. Then one day he suffered a stroke-like episode and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He lost everything - his...

'One of Ireland's most powerful campaigners' The Kavanagh SistersI look back now and see that I never stood a chance. It's hard when you realise your whole childhood was taken...

Her mother, who wrote vivid versions of old Irish folk tales, once said of the Irish Civil War: 'In those days... fear kept you from sleeping, but also from getting...

Forewarned - the follow-up to Colm Keane's No. 1 bestseller Going Home and The Distant Shore - is a riveting collection of stories concerning premonitions and predictive dreams. Featuring 60...