Irish Biography

Peacemaker, politician, Nobel laureate: John Hume was a titan of Irish political history and a key architect of the Good Friday Agreement, bringing peace to Northern Ireland after decades of...

Christy Mangan knows how hard it is to solve a murder.In his forty-year career, Mangan participated in or led over 100 murder investigations. And he set up the Garda cold...

'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...

* `The Loneliest Boy in the World - he has only seagulls as playmates.' 1949 newspaper article * Gearoid Cheaist O Cathain had a unique childhood - he was the...

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...

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...

In his talks to communities throughout the length and breath of Ireland, John Lonergan finds himself coming back to one theme: the importance of kindness. It is an unexpected theme...

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....

Nobody thought Rory O'Connor would make it - written off as 'thick' at school he struggled to find a career he felt he could succeed in. When a hot tip...

A beautiful and hopeful book for when life isn't what you expect it to be.In March 2017, Niamh Fitzpatrick's life fell apart overnight. Her beloved sister Dara was killed in...

The Number One Bestseller______________For over thirty years, David McDonald worked in Ireland's biggest prisons. This is his story.As a young officer, McDonald got a baptism of fire in Mountjoy. In...

Duine de sharscealaithe na GaeilgeIn Eanair 1952, se bliana sula bhfuair Peig Sayers bas, thionscain Coimisiun Bealoideasa Eireann agallaimh lei agus i in ospideal Naomh Anna, Baile Atha Cliath. Bhi...

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...

'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...

Maeve Binchy's heart-warming tales of love, life and loss made her one of Ireland's most celebrated writers. Seared with a truth and honesty that leapt from the page, her books...

'Like hanging with your funniest, sunniest, most sound, wise friend.' Marian Keyes Everything good, bad and downright mad that has shaped Vogue's life and career is laid bare in Big...

I want to walk through time, for days, for nights, I want every kind of walk, walks under sunsets and stars, walks of rain and storms, through howling winds and...

Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh was a founder actress of the Abbey Theatre and its first leading lady on its opening in 1904, when she played the title role in W. B....

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...

Beneath the Surface is the powerful and deeply human memoir from No.1 bestselling author and renowned mental health advocate Dr. Harry Barry. In this moving life story, Dr. Barry pulls...

THE IRISH TIMES BESTSELLERWhen death is a way of life . . .In A Life Among the Dead, David McGowan, Ireland's best known Funeral Director, and subject of the Award-winning...

David Trimble was one of the most influential figures in modern British and Irish history. A Nobel Laureate, he negotiated the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 that helped to secure...

From a childhood shaped by neglect and violence to three brutal years spent in a cold, indifferent convent, Breda O'Toole's early life was marked by abandonment. When she sought help,...

Ita Doyle: 'In all my life I have lived in two houses, had two jobs, and one husband. I'm a very interesting person'Rory & Ita, Roddy Doyle's first non-fiction book,...

'I have come to think of all the metal in my body as artificial stars, glistening beneath the skin, a constellation of old and new metal. A map, a tracing...

In 1825 26 year old Bridget Cleary disappeared from her house in rural Tipperary. At first, some said that the fairies had taken her into their stronghold in a nearby...

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...

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

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....

Doing my Bit for Ireland is Margaret Skinnider's autobiography, focusing mostly on the time period shortly before and after the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. In it, she details her...

When he retired in 2018 Pat Marry had been instrumental in solving dozens of serious crimes, including many murders.But as a newly qualified garda in 1985, Marry had no idea...

'There's great power in talking, but there's greater power in laughing. Even the best doctor in the world would be hard pushed to find a treatment with better medicinal properties...

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...

For many of its participants, the Second World War was the most intense period of their lives - with horizons widened by grief, strangeness and excitement. Peter Ross, graduated from...

'The prospect of taking over the 'Regarding Ireland' column scared me witless. If they'd changed the title to 'Regarding Reality TV' or even 'Regarding Roisin', I might have been slightly...