Irish Biography

'A sensitive, honest, unsentimental and, yes, brave piece of writing that makes for compulsive reading' Nigella LawsonGrief. Anger. Joy. Fear. Distraction. Disgust. Hope. All emotions we expect to encounter over...

'I Found My Tribe is inspiring, humbling and a picture of what love really looks like' Marian KeyesAn invocation to all of us to love as hard as we can,...

Farming has been in John Connell's family for generations, but he never intended to follow in his father's footsteps. Until, one winter, he finds himself back on the farm and...

'As skilful, stylish and pacy as one would expect from so adept a novelist' Sunday TelegraphEdna O'Brien depicts James Joyce as a man hammered by Church, State and family, yet...

Gerry's career came about almost by accident. His early days in Downpatrick were a struggle. His alcoholic father abandoned the family, his mother worked all the hours she could, providing...

What would you do to save your child? When Vera Twomey's daughter Ava was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy that causes multiple seizures a day, the...

What do you do with impossible dreams? When do you let them go? Niamh Shaw, scientist, engineer and performer, had always felt that something was missing in her life. Stepping...

In Martin McGuinness, The Man I Knew, Jude Collins offers the reader a range of perspectives on a man who helped shape Ireland's recent history. Those who knew Martin McGuinness...

The world is a mess and bestselling author and comedian Tara Flynn is raging. Well, sometimes. Mostly she's shocked, bemused, irreverent and wondering where the kindness went. Depends on the...

In this sequel to the hugely-popular This Man's Wee Boy, young Tony Doherty struggles to come to terms with the murder of his father, Paddy, on Bloody Sunday and the...

Beyond the Breakwater tells the story of Catherine Foley's transition from childhood into adulthood. She chronicles her family's journey from Waterford city to the Gaeltacht in 1970 and she monitors...

Phil Quinlan was a sports-mad fifteen year old when he packed his bag one Sunday morning in 1989 to play a game of football. A clash of heads on the...

Walking with Ghosts is the stunningly evocative memoir by Irish actor and Hollywood star, Gabriel Byrne.'Dreamy, lyrical and utterly unvarnished' - Colm ToibinAs a young boy growing up in the...

"You don't have to be Irish to cherish this literary gift-just being human and curious and from a family will suffice." -Malachy McCourt, New York Times bestselling author of A...

In the tradition of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes and Alice Taylor's To School Through the Fields, Tom Phelan's We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It is a heartfelt and...

'Honest, witty and poignant observations on life that are both heart breaking and heartwarming' Amy HubermanAs a child, being in new places made Stefanie Preissner ill, which is why her...

First published in Irish by An Gum in 1965, Seosamh Mac Grianna's magnificent autobiographical novel Mo Bhealach Fein is translated here for the first time into English by Micheal O...

This is the story of a man from early twentieth century rural Cork who rose to the heights of the RAF and excelled as a major figure in international rugby...

THE GLOBALIST is the first in-depth biography of an international power-broker who was instrumental in shaping the global economy that we know today. PETER SUTHERLAND played a defining role in...

'My Name is Philippa offers every reader a story that will change their heart. So be prepared, with a mind open enough to hear Philippa's story, to feel altered by...

In early 2020, Rosanna Davison gave a raw and sincere account of the 14 miscarriages she had suffered before choosing to have a baby via gestational surrogate. Then, just weeks...

Green fields surrounded St Mary's National School at the foot of Three Rock Mountain in County Dublin in the 1930s. The author, as a boy, went from the little playground...

Many of us spend the later years of life living solo when children have grown up and moved on. Others choose this lifestyle. We get used to being on our...

This is the best-selling biography of the IRA resistance fighter and hunger-striker, Bobby Sands. In this updated, new edition, Denis O'Hearn draws from a wealth of interviews with friends, comrades,...

A remarkable story of turning heartbreak into hope Life as we know it can change in an instant, in the blink of an eye. And it did for Martina Cox...

Is it possible to be young, progressive and a Catholic? Ellen Coyne is about to find out ... 'You know, this isn't a Catholic country anymore,' someone proudly declared in...

'The point of all this has nothing to do with finding yourself. It's about what you can do to lose what you don't need.'It's a dark rainy afternoon on Dublin's...

Tom Crean was the indestructible farmer's son from Kerry who sailed on three major expeditions to the unknown Antarctic a century ago. He was among the few men who served...

Tony 10 was the online betting username of Tony O'Reilly, the postman who became front-page news in 2011 after he stole EURO1.75 million from An Post while he was a...

When Rory Cowan stepped down from the role of Rory in Mrs Brown's Boys after 15 years, it made national headlines. Here, in his unique voice, the much-loved entertainer tells...

Oscar Wilde was one of Ireland's finest and most prolific 19th-century writers and a celebrated wit. He became a popular playwright in the early 1890s and is best remembered for...

As she turns 80, Mary O'Rourke writes a letter to 20 people, past and present, close and distant, living and deceased.To her beloved brother, Paddy ... to the Athlone Fianna...

'I think I bought a house', I said, still slightly stunned. I've spent longer choosing a tie.First, a dream of escaping the city ... and then a century-old cottage to...

Jimmy Magee, whose extraordinary memory for sports trivia has led to his being dubbed the Memory Man, has the distinction of being the longest-serving sports commentator in the English-speaking world....

Born in the Liberties of Dublin in 1910, Jim Branigan was, by his own admission, a shy, scrawny "sissy" as a lad. Cruelly beaten by bullies in the railway yard...

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...