Irish Biography

'Honest, witty and poignant observations on life that are both heart breaking and heartwarming' Amy HubermanAs a child, being in new places made Stefanie Preissner ill, which is why her...

First published in Irish by An Gum in 1965, Seosamh Mac Grianna's magnificent autobiographical novel Mo Bhealach Fein is translated here for the first time into English by Micheal O...

This is the story of a man from early twentieth century rural Cork who rose to the heights of the RAF and excelled as a major figure in international rugby...

THE GLOBALIST is the first in-depth biography of an international power-broker who was instrumental in shaping the global economy that we know today. PETER SUTHERLAND played a defining role in...

It was June 10th, Barnacle Day. He saw her in Nassau Street and they stopped to talk. She thought his blue eyes were those of a Norseman. He was twenty-two,...

'My Name is Philippa offers every reader a story that will change their heart. So be prepared, with a mind open enough to hear Philippa's story, to feel altered by...

In early 2020, Rosanna Davison gave a raw and sincere account of the 14 miscarriages she had suffered before choosing to have a baby via gestational surrogate. Then, just weeks...

Green fields surrounded St Mary's National School at the foot of Three Rock Mountain in County Dublin in the 1930s. The author, as a boy, went from the little playground...

Many of us spend the later years of life living solo when children have grown up and moved on. Others choose this lifestyle. We get used to being on our...

This is the best-selling biography of the IRA resistance fighter and hunger-striker, Bobby Sands. In this updated, new edition, Denis O'Hearn draws from a wealth of interviews with friends, comrades,...

On 23 July 2018, in the seaside town of Mati in Greece, Zoe Holohan and her husband of four days were enjoying the beginning of their honeymoon. Then disaster struck....

A remarkable story of turning heartbreak into hope Life as we know it can change in an instant, in the blink of an eye. And it did for Martina Cox...

Having just turned 40, Bernard O'Shea found himself hurtling towards a mid-life crisis. His waistline expanded, his flexibility abandoned him, his wardrobe was invaded by elasticated beige trousers and sandals...

Is it possible to be young, progressive and a Catholic? Ellen Coyne is about to find out ... 'You know, this isn't a Catholic country anymore,' someone proudly declared in...

'The point of all this has nothing to do with finding yourself. It's about what you can do to lose what you don't need.'It's a dark rainy afternoon on Dublin's...

Tom Crean was the indestructible farmer's son from Kerry who sailed on three major expeditions to the unknown Antarctic a century ago. He was among the few men who served...

Tony 10 was the online betting username of Tony O'Reilly, the postman who became front-page news in 2011 after he stole EURO1.75 million from An Post while he was a...

With Time to Talk, Michael Healy-Rae established himself as a new storyteller, steeped in the traditions of rural Ireland. In A Listening Ear, his superior storytelling skills come once again...

When Rory Cowan stepped down from the role of Rory in Mrs Brown's Boys after 15 years, it made national headlines. Here, in his unique voice, the much-loved entertainer tells...

Oscar Wilde was one of Ireland's finest and most prolific 19th-century writers and a celebrated wit. He became a popular playwright in the early 1890s and is best remembered for...

As she turns 80, Mary O'Rourke writes a letter to 20 people, past and present, close and distant, living and deceased.To her beloved brother, Paddy ... to the Athlone Fianna...

'I think I bought a house', I said, still slightly stunned. I've spent longer choosing a tie.First, a dream of escaping the city ... and then a century-old cottage to...

Jimmy Magee, whose extraordinary memory for sports trivia has led to his being dubbed the Memory Man, has the distinction of being the longest-serving sports commentator in the English-speaking world....

Born in the Liberties of Dublin in 1910, Jim Branigan was, by his own admission, a shy, scrawny "sissy" as a lad. Cruelly beaten by bullies in the railway yard...

Tony Ryan was one of the greatest Irishmen of the twentieth century.Ingenious, driven and sometimes reckless, his sheer spirit and adventurousness made him Ireland's Aviator. Born in a railwayman's cottage...

Looking back over the last six, almost seven decades, the images that flash through my mind are hardly believable - sometimes, it feels like I'm remembering someone else's life. The...

Intensely private, possibly saintly, but perhaps misanthropic, Samuel Beckett was the most legendary and enigmatic of writers. Anthony Cronin's biography is a revelation of this mythical figure as fully human...

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...

'A little gem of a book' Brendan O'ConnorTom Inglis and his Wheaten terrier Pepe have lived together for eighteen years: countless days of walks and play and the odd bit...

In the first authorized biography of W. B. Yeats for over 50 years, Roy Foster brings new light to one of the most complex and fascinating lives of the late...

Annie Caulfield's early years were spent by the seaside in Ireland. However, the family shifted to Sixties London and soon she wasn't sure who she was - was she English,...

Local rather than international, the dramas and privations described in this memoir are not the stuff of headlines. This is the story of an ordinary boy growing up in Belfast...

A memoir of growing up in New York in the 1930s and in Ireland in the 1940s. McCourt tells of extreme hardship and suffering, in Brooklyn tenements and Limerick slums...

'What I wanted was for Malachy Finegan to be exposed. I felt that the wee boy I had been might be stepping from the darkness, and I needed him to...

'Are you going into town today?' she says, which annoys me because it's something she says all the time, having forgotten she said it before, and I say, 'Jesus, Mum,...

To look at Martin McGuinness' life is to follow Northern Ireland's own transition from conflict to peace. Martin McGuinness: A Life Remembered tells the remarkable story of McGuinness' journey from...

'Ach cerbh i Peig Sayers?'Niorbh i in aon chor an tseanbhean ologonach i ar chuir na glunta de dhaltai scoile aithne uirthi. Is leir o chuntais uathu siud arbh eol...

The definitive story of Harry Boland, the ardent and prominent Republican, loyal confidant to de Valera and close friend and, later, love rival to Michael Collins for the heart of...

Tomas O'Crohan was born on the Great Blasket Island in 1865 and died there in 1937, a great master of his native Irish. He shared to the full the perilous...

Every time I write about my heart, I write about walking. Every time I write about walking, I write about my heart. What is it like to be born with...

Solace is that feeling of calm and comfort, that sense of peace that is all around us when we are open to finding it.Writer and photographer Catherine Drea explores the...