Secondhand Irish Biography Books

Fergal Keane is one of the BBC's best known foreign correspondents. His latest work for Radio 4 was "Letter to Daniel", an emotional message to his newborn son. This work...

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'...

An entrancing story of a charmed childhood on a farm in the West of Ireland during the 1930s and early 1940s. An Irish country Childhood is a tale of times...

The harrowing true story of a travelling Irish family bonded by love, broken apart by life, and then betrayed by their carers in a cruel convent in Ireland. "For those...

"Dignity was our most valuable possession". Joe Duffy is a household name in Ireland. As the presenter of RTE Radio One's "Liveline" programme, he takes the pulse of the Irish...

In 1846 the Crokers, a Presbyterian landlord family, flee famine-stricken West Cork aboard the Henry Clay, survive shipwreck and land in New York. There they are confronted with the grim...

Based on personal testimony, this book was written to show what the term "domestic violence" really means to the thousands of women, children - and sometimes men - who suffer...

'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...

'Incredibly moving' --Anne Enright, winner of the Man Booker PrizeAn Affair with My Mother by Caitriona Palmer: a moving and gripping story of love, denial and a daughter's quest for...

LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2021'One of the year's funniest books' i Paper'Funny, smart, soulful and sometimes devastating ... It made me laugh and cry' EMILIE PINE, author of...

A searing coming-of-age memoir set in an unfamiliar world: Irish South Boston. Michael MacDonald brings us a poor and intensely insular neighbourhood which its residents agree is the "best place...

From the author of the million-selling Angela's Ashes -- the most keenly anticipated sequel of the decade 'The reader of this stunning memoir can only hope that Mr McCourt will...

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,...

Eileen Battersby is the chief literature critic of The Irish Times and is, in the words of John Banville, 'the finest fiction critic we have'. But her first full-length book...

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

A memoir of growing up in New York in the 1930s and in Ireland in the 1940s. McCourt tells of extreme hardship and suffering, in Brooklyn tenements and Limerick slums...

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...

This no-holds barred account of Leland Bardwell's life spans five decades and unveils the shroud of innocence that often clouds our vision of the past. Bardwell confronts her life head...

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...