Irish Biography

Bestselling author and psychologist Tony Bates has spent his career seeking to understand the lives of others. Here he turns his therapeutic eye on himself and describes the events and...

Jason Byrne is 17. With his leaving cert under his belt but no idea what to do next, who better to ask for advice than his dad, Paddy? There's a...

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...

'This is an important slice of living, breathing agricultural history written with absolute honesty by an insider who has the rare quality of being able to see it from the...

'A really vivacious account of frayed family relationships across decades and around the world' Financial Times PodcastQuick-witted, charismatic and generous; angry, vicious and hurt; in pubs all over Cork City,...

'Incredibly moving' --Anne Enright, winner of the Man Booker PrizeAn Affair with My Mother by Caitriona Palmer: a moving and gripping story of love, denial and a daughter's quest for...

'This is the most gripping book I've read in ages ... It is beautifully written, fascinating, disturbing and often very funny.' Roddy Doyle The childhood world of Hugo Hamilton, born...

Stories to inspire.Stories to connect.Extraordinary moments in which women's lives changed forever.Exhilarating, heartbreaking and ultimately inspiring, The Day That Changed My Life is a remarkable collection of stories of Ireland's...

'Poignant ... A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature' IRISH TIMESWhen they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave...

'Like nothing else you will read' Hilary MantelTop 25 History Books of the Year, The Times - the perfect gift for book lovers this Christmas!Every day a beloved father dies....

Patrick 'Paddy' Reilly is an Irish folk singer and guitarist. Born in Rathcoole, County Dublin, he is one of Ireland's most famous balladeers and is best known for his renditions...

Storytelling kept alive the myths, legends and history of the Blasket Islands. In her old age, Peig Sayers, recounted her life to her son who recorded the tale in this...

Claire Walsh spent her twenties living the life she thought she was supposed to live, all the while playing hide and seek with depression. As a result, the road to...

Fr Tony Coote was just fifty-three years old in February 2018 when he was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease. Just a few short months later, he found himself confined to...

'Life had brought me to the edge of myself and here I was feeling like I was on the edge of the world.'After moving back to her homeplace on the...

In 1993, aged twenty, Carmel Mc Mahon left Ireland for New York, carrying $500, two suitcases and a ton of unseen baggage. It took years, and a bitter struggle with...

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.'...

As a Facebook moderator, Chris Gray made a living looking at graphically violent images and reviewing some of the internet's most toxic debates. Following a short training induction, he was...

Riverdance exploded across the stage at Dublin's Point Theatre one spring evening in 1994 during a seven-minute interval of the Eurovision Song Contest hosted by Ireland. It was a watershed...

'In my life, I've lost a twin, had an adored sister-in-law suffer a fatal asthma attack at just 31, my brother was murdered, a cherished brother-in-law died in his 40s...

Nuala O'Faolain's first memoir Are You Somebody? became a literary sensation and an international bestseller when it was first published by New Island Books in 1996. It launched a new...

'Her highly personal and reflective memoir ... is a must-read for anyone who cares about our role in a changing world' Barack Obama THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE...

In the pieces brought together in Writing Home, Polly Devlin OBE, most bewitching of writers, covers subjects that range over her whole life and thought. She writes about places: about...

Throughout his life, Michael Harding has lived with a sense of emptiness - through faith, marriage, fatherhood and his career as a writer, a pervading sense of darkness and unease...

'The path I have travelled, the things I have done and the people I have met in crisis situations have given me a window into those qualities that make us...

'Derry Girls meets David Sedaris' Elske Rahill 'The writing is full of energy and originality' Irish Times Growing up on the Falls Road in 1990s Belfast, Alix O'Neill has seen...

'I have him bitched, balloxed and bewildered, for there's a system and a science in taking the piss out of a screw and I'm a well-trained man at it.' So...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING - HIGHLY COMMENDED'Remarkable' Robert Macfarlane'Beautiful' Amy Liptrot'Powerful, unflinching . . . Part hymn to nature, part Troubles memoir' GuardianKerri ni Dochartaigh was...

To commemorate the fourth anniversary of the death of celebrated Irish writer and philosopher John Moriarty, we have reprinted his acclaimed autobiography Nostos. In this astonishing volume of autobiography, John...

Turtle Was Gone a Long Time: Horsehead Nebula Neighing, the second volume of a remarkable trilogy, continues John Moriarty's spiritual journey embarked upon in Crossing the Kedron. In a Prelude...

In a letter to his friend Charles Ford, Jonathan Swift wrote: 'I have finished my travells and I am now transcribing them: they are admirable things and will wonderfully mend...

The Irish actor Donal McCann is probably best remembered by U.S. audiences from film performances he gave in John Huston's The Dead or Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty, or perhaps his performance...

Agnes Bernelle, one of Ireland's best-loved stage performers, was born Agnes Bernauer in Berlin in 1923, the daughter of a renowned Jewish-Hungarian theatre impresario. In this sparkling, intimate memoir she...

In We Have a Good Time...Don't We? Maeve Higgins, comedian and lady, smashes the brittle veneer on the creme brulee of life and hands around spoons, so we can all...

Peter Somerville-Large grew up with his brother Phil in a nursery world at the top of a smart house in Dublin from where they could watch Fitzwilliam Place far below,...