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...

A stroke of luck.

A Sunday Times Bestseller March 2022 (Ireland)Soon, the lockdown would start. People would die alone, without any proper ceremony. Charlotte's death would be washed away, the first drop in a...

Maeve Higgins used to think she'd live in Ireland forever. She used to think a lot of crazy things, like 'macadamia nuts are a light snack'. Then the stunning and...

Kathy O'Beirne's earliest memories are of being battered and sexually abused. Unable to confide in anyone about the beatings she regularly received from her father or about the boys who...

For many of its participants, the Second World War was the most intense period of their lives - with horizons widened by grief, strangeness and excitement. Peter Ross, graduated from...

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...

'Touching and nostalgic' GUARDIAN'She conjures places as vividly as feelings, and feelings as exactly as her surroundings' VOGUE 'It is the only intimate and un-angry expression of the feelings 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...

'There's great power in talking, but there's greater power in laughing. Even the best doctor in the world would be hard pushed to find a treatment with better medicinal properties...

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...

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'...

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...

The letters from 1926-1950 complete the four-volume edition of Shaw's correspondence. The book covers the final quarter-century of the dramatist's life, a period in which Shaw had reached the pinnacle...

This autobiography includes stories of village life in Co Wicklow between the wars, and of schooldays in Kilkenny and of the cosily eccentric Trinity College during the 1940s. Yet even...

West Cork is a magical place. We Irish know this, as do the international celebrities who have been attracted by its beauty and security. The countryside has remained unspoiled and...

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...

He claimed he couldn't talk about his work, but Samuel Beckett proves remarkably forthcoming in this text, which documents the 30-year working relationship between the playwright and Alan Schneider, his...

At the age of nine, the author was knocked on the jaw in her school playground. What her family initially thought was a toothache brought on by the accident, turned...

This is Patrick Touher's sequel to "Fear of the Collar", his memoir of boyhood in Artane Industrial School. The book opens with his leaving of Artane. It then traces his...

A mesmerising novel of love, freedom, and retribution set in the Caribbean. It is 1952 on the Caribbean island of Bimshire. Mary-Mathilda - mistress of plantation manager Mr Bellfeels and...

'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...

His work has long been recognised for its innovation and his reputation for clashes with the so-called gardening 'establishment' are famous. He has won many accolades including Silver Gilt at...

The Third Daughter begins in 1940s Limerick, where the O'Mara family were merchant princes of the city. The story follows the family fortunes from middle-class comfort to genteel poverty as...