Irish Interest Books

On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomas and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged…

Ethnology draws on the mystical cry for the dead of Cathy Galvin's Irish-speaking ancestors. Within an epic narrative she reclaims place, people and language, creating a bridge between our own times and a Connemara community on th…

An explosive bond. In a time of revolution, their fates will lie in the turn of a card . . It is the early days of the French Revolution and, on the streets of Paris, terror reigns. Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand is a young woman w…

In Ireland, the art of conversation / crua-chaint is highly valued. We like to 'put a skin on a story' / craiceann a chur ar scéal because words are not just words to us. They are alive, carrying echoes of where they’ve been and t…

The first biography of IRA leader Rory O'Connor, close comrade of Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy and prominent member of the anti-Treaty IRA.The execution of IRA leader Rory O'Connor on 8 December 1922, along with Liam Mellow…

A new book celebrating the achievements of 12 inspirational women who made significant contributions to local government in Cork city was launched recently in Cork City Hall. ‘Leading the Way’ was written by Dr Aodh Quinlivan, Sen…

Most people remember the flooding of Cork in 2009 and the tremendous damage that was caused. Less well-known is that this was not the first time this had happened. On 1 November 1853 another flood of immense proportions poured int…

Brimming with evocative quotes, intriguing facts and delightful trivia, this pocket-sized gem raises a glass to Ireland's legendary brew. The Little Guide to Guinness takes you on a fascinating journey through time - from the rema…

A hill that cars roll up. A bridge that plays music. A chair to cure madness.An underworld gateway. Bizarre foods, films, phrases and creatures. Welcome to weird Ireland.In a journey across the island, Brinsley McNamara - curator …

A busy week, a daunting appointment, a divorce, because she believes the world is going to end in the morning. Every morning."Having grown up visiting her grandmother in various psychiatric hospitals, Molly Hennigan began writing …

FOREWORD by former Ireland fly half Ollie Campbell. 'In a world going all too fast, Peter Bills has the time, the wit and the attention to detail for stories that would otherwise be lost. His is an easy style, a remembering of tim…

Mairéad works tirelessly in a run-down West End theatre's wardrobe department - mending shoes, fixing broken zips and even handwashing underwear. She must also sidestep groping hands backstage and withstand the relentless b…

Twenty years ago Caitlin vowed never to return to her small Irish hometown. Now she drifts from temporary jobs to temporary men, trying to escape memories of the Hanging Woods. Of what happened to Roisin there.But with news of her…

A young girl spends her days on a double-decker bus. A bride-to-be prays to St Valentine's bones. Flowers are found, left in bouquets, all over a museum. Teenagers gather to dissect the human body.Teeming with compassion and thrum…

While growing up in West Belfast, Sean does everything he’s supposed to do. He works hard, he studies, and he―mostly―stays out of trouble. The thirty-year conflict is over, he’s told, and his future is lit with promise.But when Se…

Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charis…

Tom Leahy hails from Ballythooly in North Cork. He is one of Ireland's most decorated Paralympians, winning a total of eight medals at the Paralympic Games. He is now a full-time artist, with his paintings appearing in many public…

From the early nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, three generations of Hill architects were responsible for much of the fine architecture in Cork city and county. They designed the School of Science & Art (now Cr…

Remarkably honest, brutally heroic and darkly humorous memoir following a devastating diagnosis of early onset Parkinson's disease. Twitch is a frank and funny memoir about picking up the pieces when personal tragedy hits. In 2021…

Acclaimed wildlife author Conor W. O’Brien travels the country in search of Ireland’s extinct wildlife and our greatest conservation success stories.

Ferriter tells the latest chapter in Ireland's story with authority and insight, deftly weaving together economic and political upheavals with equally tumultuous societal and cultural shifts' Financial Times 'Forensic and insightf…

In eighty short essays, historians, folklorists, archaeologists, theologians, anthropologists, poets, novelists, artists, literary scholars, and educationalists explore diverse facets of the experience of childhood in Ireland over…

SWERVE publishes vibrant and fresh writing and visual art from Ireland in both print and digital formats. We also invite international artists and writers to contribute.

Betsy Cornwell left home with her baby on his first birthday, checking into a hotel under a false name so her husband could not track them down. Over the long months of housing insecurity that followed, bouncing around cheap motel…

This fully illustrated and authorised history marks fifty years of one of Ireland’s most ground-breaking and successful theatrical ensembles. Founded in 1975, Druid is a touring theatre company, anchored in the West of Ireland and…

The Croppy Boy Way is a love letter to Cork’s Northside - its people, its stories, and the places that shaped generations. Over seven years, authors Gerry Corbett and the late Jim O’Shea walked the hills and boreens of their commu…

Such is the wrath of the mothers, such is the cry of the mothers, such is the lamentation of the mothers. Ageing Dilly Macready lies in her hospital bed in Dublin, awaiting a final visit from her estranged daughter, Eleanora, an a…

This book is full of curious facts about the Gods and Goddesses of Ireland, including the ever favourite Bridget, Mananan Mac Lir, the sea god and Lugh, of the long arm.Did you know that Aine is the goddess of Summer and that we g…

In this unique book, Irish women who stayed living on the island, who did not emigrate, describe their lives and perspectives on a dramatically changed social context from the 1990s to 2023. We hear the women’s voices through O’Ca…

Uncover the gripping narrative of Irish immigrants who transformed America in the aftermath of the Great Hunger. Tyler Anbinder's landmark work exposes the grit and resilience of the Famine Irish, defying hardship to redefine the …