Secondhand Irish Biography Books

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...

Tales in a Rearview Mirror is a collection of true stories as told from the driver's seat of a Dublin taxi. Some are funny, some are sad, some are foolish...

Uncovering the hidden love triangle between novelist Elizabeth Bowen and the author's grandparents - the critically acclaimed biography with never-before-seen letters detailing the affair.For readers who were swept up in...

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...

In her hilarious debut, Maeve Higgins smashes the brittle veneer on the creme brulee of life and hands around spoons, so we can all taste the delicious absurdity that lies...

Malachy McCourt, actor, gadfly and raconteur follows up his international best sellerA Monk Swimming with this, the second instalment of his hilarious memoirs. Malachy McCourt grew up in Limerick amid...

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 young person is looking for freedom, but some have to fight harder than others ...In 1960s Ireland there was a special place for disabled children: behind the walls of...

Aged just 12, Patrick Sheedy placed his first bet for 10p and devised his first scam, marking the beginning of his life as a compulsive gambler and one of Ireland's...

'I entered Goldenbridge orphanage in my Communion outfit. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing there.'At age seven, Bernadette Fahy was delivered with her three brothers to Goldenbridge...

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...

C.S.Lewis was a prolific writer and a man capable of inspiring both devotion and hostility. This book charts the progress of Lewis from Ulster to Oxford where he was a...

'A book which will very soon be acknowledged as a classic of Irish sportswriting' Ciaran MurphyWhat is it like to be female in a male-dominated sporting world? If you play...

'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....

Woven into the story of his life and the national events of his times are the equally dramatic changes in which he participated during his twenty-seven years with the Irish...

A stroke of luck.

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...

A comic book character is born, the youngest of sixteen, into a war torn country. Facing extreme brutality at school and on the streets, not to mention the oppression of...

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...

Desmond Doyle, 29, a painter and decorator, is married with six children and living in the infamous Fatima Mansions in Dublin in 1953. One day he comes home to find...

Desmond Doyle, 29 a painter and decorator, is married with six children and living in the infamous Fatima Mansions in Dublin in 1953. One day he comes home to find...

In We Have a Good Time...Don't We? Maeve Higgins, comedian and lady, smashes the brittle veneer on the creme brulee of life and hands around spoons, so we can all...

A powerful account of an obsessive love affair from the bestselling author of 44: A Dublin MemoirWhen Peter Sheridan's father died unexpectedly, the loss devastated his close-knit family. However, despite...

McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winning look back at his childhood. "It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while..." Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's sad,...

When Molly McCloskey was a young girl, her brother Mike - fourteen years her senior - started showing signs of paranoid schizophrenia. By the time Molly was old enough to...