Irish Biography

One day in the summer of 2016, Michael Harding's wife brought an unusual gift home from Warsaw. All of a sudden, he found himself falling back into the old religious...

Death is a whisper in the Anglo-Saxon world. But on a remote island, off the coast of County Mayo, it has a louder voice. The local radio station runs a...

'I have put my genius into my life but only my talent into my work'. So said Oscar Wilde of his remarkable life - a life more complex, more erotic,...

To the outside world, Father Cleary was a charismatic cleric, staunchly devoted to the Catholic Church and its doctrines, and remembered as the warm-up man before Pope John Paul's historic...

"Dignity was our most valuable possession". Joe Duffy is a household name in Ireland. As the presenter of RTE Radio One's "Liveline" programme, he takes the pulse of the Irish...

I warn society against the child who has been hurt Peter Tyrrell A tormented childhood in Letterfrack industrial school with the Christian Brothers left an enduring mark on Peter Tyrrell....

Not another memoir of childhood? Well, yes actually. Not another regressive desire to capture a golden weren't-we-poor-but-happy age? Well, no. Nor a pursuit of misery and repression either. This is...

A fascinating story of love and campaigning for equality and social justice.When Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan met it was love. It has been love through twenty-seven years together....

Aged just 12, Patrick Sheedy placed his first bet for 10p and devised his first scam, marking the beginning of his life as a compulsive gambler and one of Ireland's...

The shocking true story of a young boy hidden away from his family and the world in a Catholic home for unmarried mothers in 1950s Dublin. Born an 'unfortunate' onto...

A third memoir from the author of the huge international bestsellers Angela's Ashes and 'Tis. In Teacher Man, Frank McCourt details his illustrious, amusing, and sometimes rather bumpy long years...

Malachy McCourt, actor, gadfly and raconteur follows up his international best sellerA Monk Swimming with this, the second instalment of his hilarious memoirs. Malachy McCourt grew up in Limerick amid...

From the author of the million-selling Angela's Ashes -- the most keenly anticipated sequel of the decade. Angela's Ashes was a publishing phenomenon. Frank McCourt's critically acclaimed, lyrical memoir of...

Special edition of the bestselling classic, to tie-in with the release of Alan Parker's major new film of Angela's Ashes Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's sad, funny, bittersweet memoir of...

Tales in a Rearview Mirror is a collection of true stories as told from the driver's seat of a Dublin taxi. Some are funny, some are sad, some are foolish...

David Norris is one of Ireland's most popular, colourful and charismatic public figures. Not a man to shy away from controversy, he has spent most of his adult life challenging...

Brian Keenan went to Beirut in 1985 for a change of scene from his native Belfast. He became headline news when he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Shi'ite militiamen and held...

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...