Secondhand Irish Biography Books

An Post Irish Book Award Winner'An inspiring vision' Manchan Magan'The stories are absorbing, the writing charismatic and the ideas thought-provoking' Irish IndependentOn the Beara peninsula in West Cork, a temperate...

A classic memoir from Ireland's favourite storyteller. Here Taylor follows To School Through The Fields with these equally captivating recollections of family life in pastorial County Cork. Infused with wit...

In his highly addictive style, Gene Kerrigan effortlessly reconstructs the Ireland of the 1950s and early 1960s in which he grew up. An adult world of absolute moral certainties, casual...

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...

The GAA is Ireland's largest civil society organisation, woven into the fabric of families and communities - and yet most books about Gaelic games focus on the greatest players and...

When she fell pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to the convent of Roscrea, Co. Limerick, to be looked after as a fallen woman'...

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...

'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...

Aesthete, dandy, poet, dramatist and philosopher Oscar Wilde's wit and charm dazzled society in London, America and Paris in the late 1880s. But the year 1895 brought Wilde literary triumph...

'Donal Walsh was able to see the beauty in life. He spent his valuable time helping us to open our eyes' Cecelia Ahern, authorDonal Walsh lost his battle against cancer...

When Kay O'Gorman started writing this book, every word she put down was infused with shame and guilt. How could this devoted mother, whose whole world was her family, have...

The Making of an Artist is a fascinating portrayal of the formative years of Micheal MacLiammoir, actor, playwright, artist, linguist, raconteur and co-founder of the Gate Theatre. Born in Cockney...

'Witty, shocking in parts and written with real heart ... has something to say to everyone' Sunday Times'Honest, witty and poignant observations on life that are both heart breaking and...

'Witty, shocking in parts and written with real heart ... has something to say to everyone' Sunday Times'Honest, witty and poignant observations on life that are both heart breaking and...

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,...

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...

With the imminent arrival of her third child, veterinary surgeon, Gillian Hick, decides to abandon the perils of mixed animal practice, in a favour of setting up a small animal...

'On Skellig Michael, thousands of birds appear and disappear, erecting towers, coming together in wings of movement which build and unravel over the empty sea. Often, no one else is...

In a memoir of staggering power and candour, award-winning journalist Fergal Keane addresses his experience of wars of different kinds, some very public and others acutely personal. During his years...

The Yew Tree at the Head of the Strand is an affectionate and humorous memoir of growing up in Newry - 'predominantly Catholic and sometimes fiercely Nationalist' - in the...

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...

At the heart of Once Upon a Hill are the author's grandparents, Jack and Kate, whose sedate old age belies the turmoil of their early life together, and apart -...

Patrick Deeley's train journey home to rural East Galway in autumn 1978 was a pilgrimage of grief: his giant of a father had been felled, the hurley-making workshop silenced. From...

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...

American or Irish, Republican or Democrat: many people are one or the other, but Larry Donnelly has been all of them. Born into an Irish American political dynasty, Larry was...

Ulick O'Connor takes us into the heart of Irish life in the 70s and 80s, evoking the streets and bars of Dublin with their now legendary characters: the world of...

When seventy-year-old Maura Murphy discovered she had cancer, she left her husband of fifty years and started writing her memoirs. Born 'chronically ugly and as cross as a briar' into...

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...

In this long-awaited bioraphy, Wilde the legendary Victorian - brilliant writer and conversationalist, reckless flouter of social and sexual conventions - is brought to life. More astute and forbearing, yet...

Rio Hogarty's story of her life in fostering, A Heart So Big, combines the heart-warming nostalgia of Mollie Moran's Aprons and Silver Spoons with heart-breaking stories of children whose lives...

For every woman who's ever looked in the mirror and felt crap: a funny, filthy and uplifting account of one woman's quest to leave body insecurity behind.Jules Coll was a...

John Bayley's account of his long and loving marriage to the great novelist Iris Murdoch takes us on a journey, from their love affair's comically inauspicious beginnings in the Oxford...

A biography of Sam Hanna Bell, the Ulster broadcaster and writer, based on Bell's personal papers and the reminscences of family, friends and colleagues. Born in Glasgow of Ulster emigrant...

The biggest regret of Michael Healy-Rae's life was a time he didn't talk when somebody needed him the most. After that, he vowed to never stop talking, listening and trying...