Secondhand Irish Biography Books

Nora Ephron meets Bram Stoker in Sophie White's vivid and ambitious literary non-fiction collection. White asks uncomfortable questions about the lived reality of womanhood in the 21st century, and the...

AS FEATURED ON DESERT ISLAND DISCS, BIG SCOTTISH BOOK CLUB AND THE ZOE BALL BOOKCLUB, A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, GUARDIAN, IRISH TIMES, OBSERVER,...

In 1946, twenty-six-year-old Bridget Dolan walked up the path to the front door of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Alone and pregnant, she was following in the footsteps of...

The Tailor and Ansty was banned soon after its first publication in 1942 and became the subject of much bitter controversy. It has become a modern Irish classic, promising to...

In 1950, Kathleen O'Malley and her two sisters were legally abducted from their mother and placed in an industrial school ran by the Sisters of Mercy order of nuns, who...

A force of nature from the day she was born, Lynn Ruane grew up in a loving home in Tallaght, West Dublin. But in her early teens things began to...

The Number One bestselling memoir from Ireland's former state pathologistIn 1997, Dr Marie Cassidy arrived in Dublin from Glasgow. There to discuss a possible deputy state pathologist post with Professor...

'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...

The Irish nana is a repository of family history, memory and lore. Sometimes, like the Italian nonna, she is also a 'walking cookbook', carrying the old knowledge of how things...

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...

For more than 30 years, Gay Byrne has broadcast on Irish radio and television. He tells his life story of growing up in Dublin and how he became a household...

A fascinating portrait of a neglected poet and memoirist whose colourful and complicated life brought her into contact with some of the major literary figures of early twentieth-century Ireland. Sheila...

Sunday Times Memoir of the Year 2019RTE Radio 1 Listeners' Choice Award Winner 2019 - An Post Irish Book AwardsWhen Vicky Phelan delivered an emotionally charged statement from the steps...

'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...

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...

Mairia Cahill grew up steeped in the traditions of Irish republicanism and the shadowy world of the IRA: her great-uncle Joe was one of the main founders of the Provisional...

Brian Keenan went to Beirut in 1985 for a change of scene from his native Belfast. He became headline news when he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Shi'ite militiamen and held...

Christy Brown was born a victim of cerebral palsy. But the hapless, lolling baby concealed the brilliantly imaginative and sensitive mind of a writer who would take his place among...

With exclusive access to the Haughey archives, Gary Murphy presents a reassessment of Charles Haughey's life and legacy. Saint or sinner? He was the most talented and influential politician of...

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...

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...

How do you teach a mother to love her child, when she's still a child herself?Jeanie Doyle nurtures, teaches and cares for young and dysfunctional mums, showing them how to...

What is it like to be a girl, or a woman, in a male-dominated sporting world? If you play on the boys' team, more people pay attention - but you...

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...

A fascinating story of love and campaigning for equality and social justice.When Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan met it was love. It has been love through twenty-seven years together....

Alice Taylor remembers her childhood home - the farm with all its tools and animals, the home with its equipment for living, its daily challenges, constant hard work, and its...

A third memoir from the author of the huge international bestsellers Angela's Ashes and 'Tis. In Teacher Man, Frank McCourt details his illustrious, amusing, and sometimes rather bumpy long years...

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...