Secondhand Irish Biography Books

Tim Cramer describes himself as 'an unrepentant Corkman' with an abiding love of the city, its hinterland and its people. Fortunate to grow up in an idyllic urban/rural environment, he...

On a gloomy Sunday afternoon at the height of the Troubles, rookie bomb disposal officer Ray Lane was called to the Border to defuse a 1,000kg bomb planted by the...

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...

In the latest instalment of Martha Long's autobiography, Ma, Now I'm Goin Up in the World, her story continues through her teenage years. At 16, Martha collapses on the streets,...

Francis Stuart (1902-2000) was the author of 25 novels, including "Black List", "Section H", and was critically acclaimed by W.B. Yeats, Laurence Durrell, and J. M Coetzee, among others. He...

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...

'Over and over again he warned me he would kill me if I told anyone. I was completely isolated. He made sure of that.'Mary was ten years old when she...

The Number One Irish bestseller and 2014 Irish Book Award-winner, this is the searingly moving and empowering story of Majella O'Donnell, wife of Irish singer Daniel O'Donnell. It begins with...

His devoted uncle, an expert boatman and fisherman, raised and introduced Martin Quigley to trout and salmon angling, and to life, in their backyard river at the shaping age of...

This fascinating memoir traces one man's experiences of priesthood in Ireland over half a century from formation in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to ordination in 1956, through doctoral...

One fine April day, Mary Ann Kenny's husband died suddenly while jogging near their family home. In the months that followed, Mary Ann - who had no history of mental...

With this volume, John Bayley completes his trilogy, looking back on the years in sickness and health which he and Iris spent together, and attempting to come to terms with...

Approximately 400,000 people in Ireland suffer from depression at any one time. In A Life Interrupted, Malachy Walsh gives a courageous and frank account of his 25-year battle with hereditary...

Gander at The Gate is the story of a rural Irish childhood in Knocknagoshel, Kerry, in the thirties. Through the eyes of a son of the local schoolmaster, this beautifully...

'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...