Irish Biography

Thomas was born into a family of twelve children in Ballyfermot. He had a grim childhood, he was bullied and humiliated at school, and all the time Thomas was hiding...

A full and revealing biography of one of the century's greatest English writers and an icon to a generation. Dame Iris Murdoch has played a major role in English life...

With this volume, John Bayley completes his trilogy, looking back on the years in sickness and health which he and Iris spent together, and attempting to come to terms with...

Of picking, washing and cleaning my pretty little toes, which he took great delight in, and in which pleasurable, innocent, and inoffensive pastime he as often spent hours; twas the...

'Of picking, washing and cleaning my pretty little toes, which he took great delight in, and in which pleasurable, innocent, and inoffensive pastime he as often spent hours; 'twas the...

After more than three years of suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch died in January 1999. Early that month she was taken to a home for...

This fascinating memoir traces one man's experiences of priesthood in Ireland over half a century from formation in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to ordination in 1956, through doctoral...

A uniquely-crafted memoir of the author's early childhood (1967-1972), the third oldest in a working-class Catholic family from the Brandywell in Derry. Written with the authentic voice of a child,...

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...

In spring 2006 David Latimer's church, First Derry Presbyterian, was paint bombed yet again. David's usual reaction was to keep his head down and say nothing, but this time he...

In September 2013, on the Late Late Showin front of an audience of more than half a million, Majella O'Donnell had her hair shaved off and raised a phenomenal 600,000...

For years Gareth O'Callaghan, one of Ireland's most popular broadcasters, suffered severe depression. No one guessed that as soon as he was off air, he would retreat to his bed,...

When Shane Dunphy starts work at Little Scamps creche, he has no idea what he has let himself in for. He had not worked in an early years setting for...

*The Sunday Times bestseller - now in paperback*By age seven, Rebecca Quin, now known in the ring as Becky Lynch, was already defying what the world expected of her.Raised in...

His devoted uncle, an expert boatman and fisherman, raised and introduced Martin Quigley to trout and salmon angling, and to life, in their backyard river at the shaping age of...

'Witty, shocking in parts and written with real heart ... has something to say to everyone' Sunday Times'Honest, witty and poignant observations on life that are both heart breaking and...

'Witty, shocking in parts and written with real heart ... has something to say to everyone' Sunday Times'Honest, witty and poignant observations on life that are both heart breaking and...

_______________'A triumph of scholarship and sympathy... one of the great post-war biographies' - Independent'A landmark in scholarly criticism... Knowlson is the world's largest Beckett scholar. His life is right up...

Fifteen funny and perceptive essays about one woman's messy path to finding her footing in another country, by Irish comedian, author, actor and podcaster Maeve Higgins.Maeve Higgins was already a...

Walter Ellis grew up in East Belfast. His father was a commercial traveller, his mother a housewife. He and his sister were not abused as children. Ellis was never forced...

2005 is a key year for anniversaries of events that shaped Europe and Ireland. The Collins Press joins the commemorations with the reissue of this epic war memoir, introduced by...

'There's great power in talking, but there's greater power in laughing. Even the best doctor in the world would be hard pushed to find a treatment with better medicinal properties...

Robbie is a simple man who leads a simple life: he is a husband, a father, and a journalist, living and working in Dublin. However, his carefully crafted life has...

"Warrenpoint" is a memoir, and more than a memoir: with moments of novelistic narrative and lyricism wedded to musings on the aesthetic and theological themes of the author's coming of...

When she fell pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to the convent at Roscrea in Co. Tipperary to be looked after as a fallen...

Roger Casement's revolutionary fire was lit in the Congo where he saw at first hand some of the worst abuses of the colonial project. The fire burned hotter in Brazil,...

A powerful account of an obsessive love affair from the bestselling author of 44: A Dublin MemoirWhen Peter Sheridan's father died unexpectedly, the loss devastated his close-knit family. However, despite...

The Number One Irish bestseller and 2014 Irish Book Award-winner, this is the searingly moving and empowering story of Majella O'Donnell, wife of Irish singer Daniel O'Donnell. It begins with...