Irish Biography

Frank McCourt continues his life story in the brilliant, bestselling sequel to the million-selling 'Angela's Ashes'. 'Angela's Ashes' was a publishing phenomenon. Frank McCourt's critically-acclaimed, lyrical memoir of his Limerick...

Stunning reissue of the phenomenal worldwide bestseller: Frank McCourt's sad, funny, bittersweet memoir of growing up in New York in the 30s and in Ireland in the 40s. It is...

A stolen past, a search for the truth, two lives changed foreverBorn out of wedlock in Dublin in 1937, Phyllis grew up in a tough, church run orphanage. She thought...

How do you teach a mother to love her child, when she's still a child herself?Jeanie Doyle nurtures, teaches and cares for young and dysfunctional mums, showing them how to...

In a memoir of staggering power and candour, award-winning journalist Fergal Keane addresses his experience of wars of different kinds, some very public and others acutely personal. During his years...

On Valentine's Day in 1981, a fire in the Stardust nightclub in Dublin killed 48 young people, and left behind one orphan, Lisa Lawlor. Now, on the 40th anniversary, Lisa...

In three urgent pieces of non-fiction Anne Enright explores speech and silence in the lives of Irish women: the long silence surrounding the Mother and Baby home in Tuam which...

Winner of the 2020 Wainwright Prize, Diary of a Young Naturalist chronicles the turning of Dara McAnulty's world, from spring to summer, autumn to winter, on his home patch, at...

"Walled Gardens" is a brilliant portrait of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy, struggling through the post-war depression aided by drink, horse-racing and religion, and their own idiosyncratic adaptations to modern life. Seen...

The story of the remarkable Tom Crean who ran away to sea aged 15 and played a memorable role in Antarctic exploration. He spent more time in the unexplored Antarctic...

As an RAF medical officer, Aidan had served in France, survived Dunkirk, and was plunged into adventures in the Japanese-American arena comparable with those of famous war heroes. Interned by...

In this account of life in post-war literary Dublin, Anthony Cronin writes of the frustrations and pathologies of this generation: the excess of drink; the shortage of sex; the insecurity...

Postman Larry Griffin vanishes during his rounds in Stradbally on Christmas Day 1929. The only clue to what happened was an abandoned bicycle on a deserted country road. The story...

In a life stranger than any fiction, Grace OMalley, daughter of a clan chief in County Mayo, went from marriage at fifteen to piracy on the high seas. She had...

`There followed a blue flash accompanied by a ver y bright magnesium-type flare ... Then came a frighteningly loud but rather flat explosion, which was followed by a blast of...

* `The Loneliest Boy in the World - he has only seagulls as playmates.' 1949 newspaper article * Gearoid Cheaist O Cathain had a unique childhood - he was the...

Micheal MacGowan was born in 1865 in the parish of Cloghaneely in the Donegal gaeltacht. He was the eldest of twelve children in a poverty-stricken family, living in a thatched...

Nowhere in the annals of sport is there a family so gifted. In 1982 the seven Casey brothers were inducted into the Irish Sports Hall of Fame, the only family...

First published in 1989 No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O'Brien was the first full-length biography of Flann O'Brien. Rich in background, anecdote and social history, it...

This is a love story, set in the Irish literary world between 1986 and 2015. When they were first introduced by the poet Derek Mahon, Alannah Hopkin was an arts...

Memoir from the bestselling author of To School Through the Fields who has been described by The Observer as 'Ireland's Laurie Lee...a chronicler of fading village life and rural rituals...

Relax with Alice, sit and chat over a cup of tea, as she invites you into her life.See an old press overflowing with the linen collection of two generations, the...

Alice has known, loved, and lost many people throughout her life. Here she talks about her special people, her memory of what meant so much to her about them. She...

Born in Limerick in 1891, John Edward or 'Ned' Daly was the only son in a family of nine. Ned's father, Edward, an ardent Fenian, died before his son was...

Sean MacDiarmada moved in the shadows, ultra-cautious about what he committed to paper, aware that his letters could be intercepted by the police. Because of this, history has not allocated...

A fascinating examination of the life of Thomas Clarke, a member of the Fenians and a key leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1916. Clarke spent fifteen years in...

Born a bastard to a teenage mother in the slums of 1950s Dublin, Martha has to be a fighter from the very start.As her mother moves from man to man,...

'A great read' Brendan O'Connor, RTEIn nearly three decades as a performer, Tommy Tiernan has never wanted to play it safe. So, when it came to doing a chat show,...

'A little gem of a book' Brendan O'Connor'Quietly devastating ... A touching testament to the relationship between one man and his dog' Business Post Tom Inglis and his Wheaten terrier...

LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2021'One of the year's funniest books' i Paper'Funny, smart, soulful and sometimes devastating ... It made me laugh and cry' EMILIE PINE, author of...

In over forty years in medicine - seven of these as Master of the National Maternity Hospital - obstetrician Peter Boylan was at the births of more than 6,000 babies....

In 1895 twenty-six-year-old Bridget Cleary disappeared from her house in rural Tipperary. At first, some said that the fairies had taken her into their stronghold in a nearby hill, from...

This timely memoir by one of the most prominent Catholic nationalist politicians in Northern Ireland is a primary source for the social and political history of the province, from the...

1 January 2018 will be the 250th anniversary of Maria Edgeworth's birth. Valerie Pakenham's sparkling new selection of over four hundred letters, many hitherto unpublished, will help to celebrate her...

Outstandingly researched and richly illustrated, this biography gives a new and fascinating insight into the life of one who is already acknowledged to have brought laughter and enjoyment to so...

This work is a gathering of essays in tribute to the life and achievements of a remarkable Irish- born structural engineer Peter Rice (1935-1992), 'perhaps the most influential of the...

Jack Doyle was a 6ft 5in Irishman with a giant appetite for life. In 1933 he drew 90,000 to London's White City to see him fight and was making GBP...

From Ireland to London in the 1950s, Derry in the Troubles to contemporary, de-industrialised Manchester, Joyce finds the ties of place, family and the past are difficult to break. Why...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING - HIGHLY COMMENDED'A special, beautiful, many-faceted book' Amy Liptrot'A remarkable piece of writing . . . Luminous' Robert Macfarlane'Eloquent . . ....