Irish Interest Books

Harry Barry's life and career has been shaped by defining events: a solitary childhood with chronic illness, a traumatic experience in school, and family tragedies that set him on a course of dedicating his life to medicine and he…

She Died Young is the literary work of an astonishing mind in which intellect, madness, art and raw honesty unite. It is as far from a ‘celebrity memoir’ as you can get. With humour, honesty and a poetic sensibility, Brenda Fricke…

Hurling is Ireland’s national game – a source of fascination and pride, even to people who have never played it. Ciarán Murphy, a lifelong club footballer, used to be one of those people. Then he spent a summer trying to play hurl…

In The Gaeilge Guide, Mollie Guidera - Ireland's leading online Irish teacher and creator of the hit platform 'Irish with Mollie' - brings her joyful, down-to-earth approach to the page in a book guaranteed to spark your connectio…

David Trimble was one of the most influential figures in modern British and Irish history. A Nobel Laureate, he negotiated the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 that helped to secure peace in Northern Ireland. In this first biography …

Leo Varadkar shares his fascinating experience as Irish prime minister at a time of much change and turbulence, in this remarkably honest memoir. Leo Varadkar was an unlikely Taoiseach – the youngest on taking office in 2017, the …

"Playing rugby at the highest level has been the focus of my life for as long as I can remember. I have enjoyed many truly amazing and humbling moments, suffered my share of struggles but also had a career I can always be proud of…

Meet the néaladóirí (cloud-watchers) and réadóirí (stargazers) from our past who, without the luxury of Met Éireann at their disposal, observed birds, trees, animals, as well as markers on land and sea for signs of weather change.…

“IT ALL STARTED WITH MY BALLS.” So begins Colm Tóibín’s fabulously compelling essay, laced with humor, about his diagnosis and treatment for cancer. Tóibín survives, but he has entered, as he says, “the age of one ball.” The secon…

Ireland has tended to think of itself as a ‘Goldilocks’ country: not too hot, not too cold, and well positioned to ride out the climate emergency. But this is a fantasy: the effects of climate change in Ireland will be profound, a…

Throughout history, the stories of women’s lives and work have been overshadowed by those of men. Wives, especially, disappear, unacknowledged as patrons and champions of their husband’s work, as collaborators, muses, carers and m…

Whether it’s tightly rolled up between two nervous, wringing hands, proudly sticking out from a quick-stepping back pocket or carefully brought home to be kept for posterity, the matchday programme is part of the very fabric of th…

THE NUMBER 1 IRISH TIMES BESTSELLERSHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 An Irish Times Book of the Year 2024 Ireland is a strikingly different country now to the one it was in the mid-1990s. Dramati…

From the bestselling author Linden MacIntyre comes an engrossing exploration of one of the most significant, but nearly unknown figures of the Irish War of Independence, Sir Hugh Tudor. Appointed by Winston Churchill to lead the R…

Executed by a British firing squad on May 12, 1916, for his role in organizing the Easter Rising, James Connolly was one of the most prominent radical organizers and agitators of his day. As a labor organizer, Connolly stressed th…

Summer, 1991. Dean: sun-stung and sticky with cool ice-pop juice, walks to the middle of The Green to get a good gawk at the new salon. And at the owner's kid. Hands deep in his pockets, his jet-black mop of hair hides the tension…

We’ve Come a Long Way is the moving double memoir of Brendan and Mary, who left 1950s rural Ireland for a new life in Birmingham. From village roots in Kerry and Tipperary to love, family and football in England, their story is on…

Samuel Beckett was perhaps the most unconventional playwright of the twentieth century. His plays broke all the rules by dispensing with traditional concepts of plot, scene, and character, concentrating instead on the experience o…

Cork is often described as Ireland’s southern capital. The city’s history goes back to a monastic then Viking settlement in the early mediaeval period to become Ireland’s second largest city. During the War of Independence in the …

A vital history from the award-winning Financial Times journalist Philip Stephens on the dramatic century since the Anglo-Irish Treaty and partition. These Divided Isles tells the story from both sides of the Irish Sea. Cutting th…

Dublin based sisters Ciarna and Sorcha Hackett have collaborated on a new book celebrating renowned women of Ireland. Womná, their new illustrated book of poems commemorates an array of well known, high achieving Irish women who c…

This enchanting collection of stories once again gathers together legends and lore from across Ireland in one special volume. Drawn from The History Press’ popular Folk Tales series, herein lies a second treasure trove of tales fr…

The book developed from one man's love of Cork's unique language. Long before The Langer catapulted Cork slang into national awareness, Morty McCarthy went on a mission to record Cork's quirky words and expressions and make them a…

Until now, in-depth analysis of key female figures in Irish republicanism in the early twentieth century has been limited. Mary MacSwiney was one of themost single-minded anti-Treaty women, leading Eamon de Valera to describe her …

An intimate and evocative celebration of the life and legacy of music and political icon Sinéad O’Connor, featuring writers including Neko Case, Sinéad Gleeson, Rayne Fisher-Quann, Porochista Khakpour, and more.  More than thirty …

Through the Lens of Time: The Horgan Brothers' Ireland 1890-1940 Step back in time through the extraordinary photographs of The Horgan Brothers, who captured Ireland during its transformation from British rule to an Independent Re…

In this masterful, philosophical thriller, one violent act echoes across four decades. An Irish exile in Paris begins writing his memoir, forcing him to confront the night he shot a policeman and fled to France. Against the backdr…

Originally published in 1918 by the Talbot Press in Dublin, two years after his execution by the British Government for his involvement in the 1916 Easter Rising, Some Poems of Roger Casement has long been a collector’s item. In l…

Great Irish Walks and Hikes is your ultimate guide to exploring the breathtaking landscapes of Ireland on foot. This book is a treasure trove for both seasoned hikers and casual walkers, offering a curated selection of fifty trail…

Anne Marie Allen was fifteen when she was accepted onto a cookery school course that promised real qualifications and a future in the career of her dreams. Seeking a better life, she moved to the calm and peaceful countryside of t…