Irish Biography

In 2002, an eighty-five-year-old former civil servant was voted 'Irishman of the Century'. Widely regarded as "the architect of modern Ireland", T.K. Whitaker's life spans the history of the Irish...

Gerald Butler was one of Ireland's last lightkeepers. Until they were fully automated in the 1990s, Gerald spent over 21 years tending to many lighthouses around the coast of Ireland....

Colin Carroll has spent a lifetime avoiding anything that might involve commitment of any kind. But one day he wakes up feeling empty and unsatisfied by the idyllic beach lifestyle...

As a young girl Alice Carey came to realise that `home' can mean different things. The only child of Irish immigrants to New York in search of a better life,...

Born into the Anglo-Irish landowning class of Co. Down, Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751-1832) led a colourful life. Heavily influenced by the celebrated radical John Jebb at Cambridge, and the revolutionary...

An introduction to all the leading Irish writers and some of the lesser known playwrights, novelists, short story writers, poets, placing them in context and providing a list of their...

"When my parents signed me up to Trojan Swimming Club, they had no idea of the evil behind Gibney's interest in me. As a thirteen-year-old, who knew nothing but kindness...

In 2018, after receiving a life-changing diagnosis, broadcaster Gareth O'Callaghan retired from full-time work and gave up the career that he had loved for decades.In this deeply personal and inspiring...

A remarkable and powerfully uplifting memoir of living with cancer by the Number One bestselling author In 2005 Emma Hannigan was thirty two years old, happily married to her long-time...

'Luke Waters had more than 20 years on the job. What he saw, what he heard and what he did will make you sit up, stay up and keep reading...

In 2008, Simon Fitzmaurice was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (mnd). He was given four years to live. In 2010, in a state of lung-function collapse, Simon knew with crystal...

Before he was thirty, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Thomas Weaver was an accomplished engineer and geologist who was successfully managing Avoca's main copper mine and had brought...

In his first book, Time to Talk, Michael Healy-Rae established himself as part of the great tradition of Kerry storytellers with his chronicles of life in rural Ireland. Now, in...

'"Mrs Byrne, you've a beautiful, very pale, ginger-haired baby boy with a wonky eye." As she was handed me by the midwife, my mother wept for all the wrong reasons....

ON 2 December 2009 two very special baby boys were born in a London hospital. Joined from chest to pelvis, the conjoined twins Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf's heart-warming and remarkable...

Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2019'[A] painfully intense, courageous and gripping account of [Fanning's] journey to the underworld of madness and back. This is a brave and instructive book.'...

An Irish Times book of the year 2022 A powerful, probing book about PTSD. As a journalist Keane has covered conflict and brutality across the world for more than thirty...

What's it all about? Why am I here? Is there a God? Why do bad things happen? What happens when we die?On RTE's The Meaning of Life, Gay Byrne has...

'The embodiment of the spirit of rural Ireland'Anna May McHugh's name is synonymous with 'the Ploughing' - the annual Championships of the National Ploughing Association. The event is the biggest...

In a fearless and honest memoir, an ordinary Irish woman recounts an extraordinary life. Born 'chronically ugly and cross as a briar' into a poor rural homestead in 1920s Ireland,...

'A ballsy paean to self-determination and body confidence ... will leave you dizzy but exhilarated ... if you read one heart-breaking yet bouncy true-life memoir this year, make sure it's...

In this book of consideration and appreciation, best-selling author and broadcaster Mary Kennedy takes stock of her life and those things most important in it. She considers what makes us...

Charlie Bird has made his name as a front-of-camera reporter covering the news as it happens, from wherever it happens. During his career as a news journalist, he reported on...

When seventy-year-old Maura Murphy discovered she had cancer, she left her husband of fifty years and started writing her memoirs. Born 'chronically ugly and as cross as a briar' into...

'I was torn. My best friend needed me. But little did I know then what the consequences of helping her would be...'In 2015, Gail O'Rorke stood trial on three counts...

When Deirdre Purcell turned sixty, she cheered. Never again would she have to fit into a size ten dress, and while her dream of crossing the US on a Harley...

This is the first biography of Denis Johnston, barrister, theatre director, film-maker, pioneering television producer, war correspondent, essayist and celebrated playwright. Johnston was of Ulster Presbyterian stock, born into Edwardian...

Born in Cloughjordan in Co. Tipperary, MacDonagh was a poet and playwright, an educator and political activist. Appointed to the IRB Military Council he became a member of the Provisional...

The Making of an Artist is a fascinating portrayal of the formative years of Micheal MacLiammoir, actor, playwright, artist, linguist, raconteur and co-founder of the Gate Theatre. Born in Cockney...

This is the first volume of the authorized three-volume life of George Bernard Shaw, the playwright, wit, socialist, vegetarian and polemicist. It covers the first 41 years of his life,...