Irish Biography

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,...

'I promised that I would one day write a book and tell the world about the home for unmarried mothers. I have at last kept my promise.'In Ireland, 1951, the...

Gander at The Gate is the story of a rural Irish childhood in Knocknagoshel, Kerry, in the thirties. Through the eyes of a son of the local schoolmaster, this beautifully...

An entertaining memoir of a rollicking life in New York of an Irish immigrant. The title is derived from the young Malachy's mishearing of the words 'amongst women' in Hail...

This edition marks the centenary of Oscar Wilde's death, and is the most complete ever to appear. It contains over 1500 of his letters, and anyone unfamiliar with Wilde as...

As an Irish Catholic raised in Leicester, fresh from University College Dublin with a first in History, Kevin Myers is sent north to work for the Belfast bureau of RTE...

'Without doubt, it's the memoir of the year' Irish IndependentPassionate, gossipy, opinionated and seriously entertaining, Truly Frank is an instant classic of journalistic memoir. Journalist Frank McDonald is best known...

Very funny, quirky and touching, A Single Headstrong Heart describes in a first-person narrative the author's childhood up to the early years of his career as a journalist and his...

Accidentally buying a derelict 22-room villa in the Italian countryside? What could possibly go wrong?When Rosie Meleady's landlady doubles her rent in cold, wet, overpriced Ireland, she packs up her...

This is the first paperback edition of Antoinette Quinn's acclaimed biography of Patrick Kavanagh, the most important Irish poet between the death of Yeats and the rise of Heaney.From the...

Wilde the writer is known to us from his plays and prose fiction, but apparently it was in his conversation that his genius reached its summit. His talk is lost...

'Captivating' Manchan Magan'Sublime' Eoghan Daltun'An earnest and uplifting blend of biography, almanac, travelogue and conservation call-to-arms' The Irish TimesSean Ronayne always knew he was different. Nicknamed 'nature boy' by the...

Approximately 400,000 people in Ireland suffer from depression at any one time. In A Life Interrupted, Malachy Walsh gives a courageous and frank account of his 25-year battle with hereditary...

A smuggler and a deserter, Darran Anderson's grandfathers skirted the Second World War on the fringes of legality. Darran's father survived the height of the political violence in Northern Ireland...

Thomas was born into a family of twelve children in Ballyfermot. He had a grim childhood, he was bullied and humiliated at school, and all the time Thomas was hiding...

A full and revealing biography of one of the century's greatest English writers and an icon to a generation. Dame Iris Murdoch has played a major role in English life...

With this volume, John Bayley completes his trilogy, looking back on the years in sickness and health which he and Iris spent together, and attempting to come to terms with...

Colm Toibin's Lady Gregory's Toothbrush is a beautiful insight into the life of outspoken Irishwoman, Augusta Gregory.A remarkable figure in Celtic history, she was married to an MP and land-owner,...

'We walk in the footprints of great women, women who lived through hard times on farms, in villages, towns and cities. The lives of these women are an untold story....

Of picking, washing and cleaning my pretty little toes, which he took great delight in, and in which pleasurable, innocent, and inoffensive pastime he as often spent hours; twas the...

'Of picking, washing and cleaning my pretty little toes, which he took great delight in, and in which pleasurable, innocent, and inoffensive pastime he as often spent hours; 'twas the...

After more than three years of suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch died in January 1999. Early that month she was taken to a home for...

This fascinating memoir traces one man's experiences of priesthood in Ireland over half a century from formation in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to ordination in 1956, through doctoral...

A uniquely-crafted memoir of the author's early childhood (1967-1972), the third oldest in a working-class Catholic family from the Brandywell in Derry. Written with the authentic voice of a child,...

A Sunday Times Book of the YearAs featured on the BBC Radio 2 Book ClubDr James Barry: Inspector General of Hospitals, army surgeon, duellist, reformer, ladykiller, eccentric. He performed the...

In spring 2006 David Latimer's church, First Derry Presbyterian, was paint bombed yet again. David's usual reaction was to keep his head down and say nothing, but this time he...