Secondhand Irish Biography Books

'We asked listeners to be honest, creative, funny, engaging and evocative in their writing ... to try to make us laugh, cry and think. We never imagined we would get...

'An unforgettable, freewheeling masterclass'Michael Magee, Nero Book Award-winning author of Close to Home 'Funny, nerve-wracking and utterly compelling'Colin Barrett, Booker Prize-longlisted author of Wild Houses'Extraordinary... A writer with a rare...

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...

'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....

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...

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...

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...

'Honest, vulnerable and empowering' Angela Scanlon'Poignant, profound, and moving, I have no doubt that this beautifully written book will comfort anyone who is in the process of falling apart' Louise...

'A delightful evocation of Irishness and of the author's deep-rooted love of the very fields of home' Publishers WeeklyAlice Taylor's classic account of growing up in the Irish countryside, 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...

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...

Angela Collins O'Mahony came from a small farming background and originally worked as a secretary for a steeplejack company. One day she was sent to a site to deliver materials...

'Are you going into town today?' she says, which annoys me because it's something she says all the time, having forgotten she said it before, and I say, 'Jesus, Mum,...

When Rory Cowan stepped down from the role of Rory in Mrs Brown's Boys after 15 years, it made national headlines. Here, in his unique voice, the much-loved entertainer tells...

Green fields surrounded St Mary's National School at the foot of Three Rock Mountain in County Dublin in the 1930s. The author, as a boy, went from the little playground...

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...

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...

The attraction of THE VILLAGE, more perhaps than its illustrious predecessors, lies in the fact that Alice Taylor has captured it so well. Leave aside for a moment the extraordinary...

'Honest, funny, heartfelt ...I loved it' Cathy Kelly Clear-eyed, touching, forthright and funny, In My Mother's Shoes is Alison Walsh's delightful account of three generations of mothers -- her Nana,...

The past they tried to hide. His mother died from cancer in 1955. His father committed suicide shortly thereafter. Paddy Doyle was sentenced in an Irish district court to be...

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...

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,...

For several years, Gareth O'Callaghan, one of Ireland's most popular broadcasters, suffered from severe depression. No one guessed that the moment he was off air, he would retreat to his...

When Jordan Ferguson was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of thirty-five and told he had only months to live, a psychologist advised him to write a letter to...