Irish Biography

'A fearless investigative journalist and author.' PATTI SMITH'Determined, tenacious, intelligent, and honest in her approach.' ANNA BURNS'A fierce light, a formidable voice.' SINEAD GLEESONA memorial collection of writings by the...

For sisters Mary Kennedy and Deirdre Ni Chinneide, spirituality has been at the centre of their lives since childhood. Their home in St Brigid's Road in Clondalkin, Dublin, was around...

This is the inspiring story of Michael Flynn, a struggling furniture salesman from Pearse Street, who reinvented himself to become one of Ireland's most beloved national figures.Starting with Mick's formative...

Kit de Waal and her brother and sisters had a hard childhood in the West Midlands. Her Irish mother didn't feed them, didn't believe in Christmas or birthdays, and thought...

We all did time, staff and prisoners. Each of us had a number; each of us wanted the finality of getting out that gate.When John Cuffe entered Mountjoy as a...

While there have been biographies of anti-Treaty male figures such as CathalBrugha, Eamon de Valera and Harry Boland, there has been limited in-depthanalysis of on women on the anti-Treaty side....

In 1983 an off-duty prison officer was shot by the IRA in cold blood on a Dublin street. Over 40 years later, no one has been convicted of his murder....

For over three decades Nell McCafferty has been Ireland's most provocative and interesting activist and commentator. As a member of that brilliant 1960s generation of working-class idealists politicized by class,war...

Long before he became President of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams was a civil rights activist who took part in sit-ins, marches and protests in Northern Ireland. Along with hundreds of...

Joyce, June and Paula Kavanagh were three sisters born to a family of ten in Ballyfermot, Dublin in the 1960s. Their father abused all three of them in the family...

With his trademark wit and honesty, Peter Sheridan has written an enthralling account of his parents' relationship, from their first encounter over a poker game in a Dundalk canteen to...

On a solo trip with her best friend to a Wexford caravan park, a barely 18-year-old virginal (ish) Emma Doran discovers it only takes one time to change your life...

NUMBER 1 BESTSELLER IN THE IRISH NON-FICTION CHARTS"Rough Beast is shocking, important and unputdownable." Roddy DoyleRough Beast is Mairia Cahill's harrowing story of her life and of what she went...

'A wit and wisdom that harkens back to an age of enlightenment' - RON PERLMAN, ACTOR'A meditation guide from a man with a mind most unlikely to be conducive to...

'The first time Shocks saw Amber coming, he lowered his head so she could wrap her arms around his nose. It was as if they understood each other's pain. Like...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Most people think I save dogs, but really they saved me. Niall Harbison is a dog hero based in Thailand. He spends his days feeding, caring...

The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls trilogy begins in August 2019.I thought of life's many bounties, to have known the extremities of joy and sorrow,...

This book charts the career of a man who has always been respected for his compassion, quirky way of thinking and fearless opposition to orthodox psychiatry. More importantly, he tells...

By age seven, Rebecca Quin, now known in the ring as Becky Lynch, was already defying what the world expected of her.Raised in Dublin, Ireland in a devoutly Catholic family,...

Would you, should you, ever sell your well-appointed, five-storey house near Buckingham Palace to uplift an impoverished area in rural East Africa? Kenneth King thought he should, so he did....

***'Raw, brutal and life-affirming - Marise has written a hugely important book that is as entertaining as it is illuminating.' - Sara Pascoe'I couldn't put this down. A brave, honest,...

A force of nature from the day she was born, Lynn Ruane grew up in a loving home in Tallaght, West Dublin. But in her early teens things began to...

"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...

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....

One day, years after he's moved away from his childhood home in rural Ireland, Dermot Healy returns to care for his ailing mother. Out of the blue she hands him...

Written in an engrossing novelesque style, yet with nothing fictional included, the book recounts, with engaging honesty, the arc of one human journey in a Belfast-based therapy from 1988-1997. To...

'This story is the result of long hours of delving into the pasts of my nanny and my ma. I hope it will give some insight into the experiences of...

For most of her life, Stefanie Preissner was a people-pleaser. From hair-raising sleepovers and endless offers of cake to unwanted second dates and unrealistic work demands, she said yes to...

'Truth telling and truth recovery have seldom been as heart-breaking or necessary as in this powerful story of human vulnerability and failure - and the ultimate triumph of the human...

From the award-winning, number one bestselling author of The Cow Book.It is summer, the hay and silage have not yet been made on John Connell's farm, so he has time...

In this reflective and enriching memoir, John Tuomey navigates the places and memories of his life over the scope of twenty-five years. First recognised for the urban regeneration of Dublin's...

The sea has always been a part of Nuala Moore's life: her earliest memory is of jumping off her father's fishing boat in Dingle Harbour and swimming back to shore....

It was love at first taste for fifteen-year-old Tadhg Hickey when he drank a can of Scrumpy Jack on the night of his exam results. Straight away it provided a...