Irish Interest Books

A vivid description of the fierce and free Celtic spirit as it has been sustained through history, and a vision for living that spirit in the present.      

There have been tramways in Britain for 150 years, but it is a story of rise, decline and slow renaissance. Trams have come and gone, been loved and hated, popular and derided, considered both old fashioned and futuristic. Horse t…

On Land and Water combines the work of photographer Sheena Jolley and poet D.J. O’Sullivan. Sheena Jolley has gained a huge international reputation as a wildlife photographer and will be well known to Irish television viewers as …

In 1981, the Stardust nightclub in Dublin was a beacon for the city's nightlife - until it became a nightmare. On that fateful Valentine's Day the dance floor became a scene of horror, as flames engulfed the venue, claiming the li…

Beneath our feet, in our hedgerows, trees and under our seas lies a complex community of beings that goes unseen and unheard by us humans. Soil is the stuff of life itself, bustling with microbes, fungi, beetles and earthworms tha…

Surrounded on all sides by water, Ireland and its people have long been shaped by the sea. Ireland has a rich history of famous – and infamous – mariners: from our earliest navigators, who may have reached North America – by curra…

The Bailout Babies dives into the lives of a generation caught between Ireland’s crash and comeback. Born in the boom, they grew up in an era of good jobs, easy debt and leisurely brunches. But before they were old enough to benef…

What do you do when you've ruined your life? You go home to your mother, if you're lucky enough still to have one. Saoirse Maher wouldn't recommend it. Leaving home wasn't supposed to be temporary. When she moved to London, Saoirs…

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…

This book documents life in two gentry houses in County Cork from the 1860s to the early 1900s. It is told through the memoirs, written later in life, of three of the four Fleming sisters of New Court House, Skibbereen. These rec…

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…