Irish Biography & Memoir Books

Rough Beast is Máiría Cahill's harrowing story of her life and of what she went through at the hands of what is now Ireland’s largest and richest party. That story is told here for the first time in full detail and with unsparing …

In 'Stone Mad' Seamus Murphy tells the story of his seven years spent as an apprentice to the stone carving trade, the growing knowledge of the challenges and joys of stone – and of the men who worked it. His artistic feeling for…

In my case, reading has always served a dual purpose. In a positive sense, it offers sustenance, enlightenment, the bliss of fascination. In a negative sense, it is a means of withdrawal, of inhabiting a reality quarantined from o…

Rather than a traditional biography, Rory Gallagher - The Later Years takes the format of a series of essays. It consists of six core sections ('In the Studio', 'On the Stage 1985-1991', 'Introducing the New Rory Gallagher Band', …

John Creedon is a renowned storyteller. Following on from the sensational success of An Irish Folklore Treasury, here he seeks to capture the folklore of his own childhood. This Boy’s Heart is set in a city-centre household bursti…

In fact, two places called home …For over sixty years, Alice Taylor has lived in the village of Innishannon, the gateway to West Cork. But her childhood was spent on a farm in North Cork, near the Kerry border, and her memories of…

NOW WITH AN UPDATED FOREWORD AND ADDITIONAL CONTENT'An affirmation of the power of love, kindness, courage and human resilience' - Lara Marlowe, author of Love in a Time of WarBernard Phelan was working for an Iranian tour operato…

In the sequel to Seamus O’Rourke’s popular first memoir, Standing in Gaps, this innocent Leitrim lad finally flees the nest, briefly sampling life in New York, Dublin and London – before inevitably returning to his beloved, duller…

GBS was the first great brand – discover how he created this most modern of concepts. The fourth book in the Royal Irish Academy’s award-winning ‘Judging’ series looks at the legacy of George Bernard Shaw, Nobel prizewinner for li…

When death is a way of life . . .In A Life Among the Dead, David McGowan, Ireland's best known Funeral Director, and subject of the Award-winning Netflix documentary The Funeral Director, guides us through the business, the scienc…

It was love at first taste for fifteen-year-old Tadhg Hickey when he drank a can of Scrumpy Jack on the night of his exam results. Straight away it provided a cure for that constant feeling of 'something wrong, something not quite…

In this contemplative short narrative, artist and acclaimed writer Sara Baume charts the daily process of making and writing, exploring what it is to create and to try to live as an artist. Elegantly encompassing images from a wor…

After being expelled from school for playing football for his country, fifteen-year-old Liam Brady travelled to London to join Arsenal, and soon became an indispensable part of their glorious 1970s team. Rightly considered one of …

The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls trilogy begins in August 2019. I thought of life's many bounties, to have known the extremities of joy and sorrow, love, crossed love and unrequited love, success a…

When football players leave Ireland behind in the hopes of carving out a future in the professional game, they often end up plying their trade in the UK -competing for a chance in the Premier League, the Scottish Premiership, or t…

Tom Kiely strode majestically through the Irish sporting scene, brushing aside all challengers, collecting championships by the score, smashing Irish, Scottish, British and European and world records on all sides. He created a bla…

An immersive memoir about a groundbreaking surfing career, and a stunning portrait of Ireland as one of the world’s most captivating big-wave surfing destinations. Born and raised in Bundoran, with the waves of the west coast of I…

The definitive biography of Shane MacGowan, fully updated to include Shane's final months and the response to his passing. Punk protagonist, legendary drinker, Irish musical icon. The complete and extraordinary journey of the Pogu…

I have become the common myth. Mother. The sleepy hum of early memories.The smell of shampoo, of Olay, of lavender. The feeling of safety. The absence of fear.When poet Alice Kinsella becomes a mother, she finds herself utterly lo…

In this gripping memoir, Eamonn Mallie takes us on an extraordinary journey through his life as a journalist in Northern Ireland. From the frontlines of the Troubles to the corridors of power, Mallie’s fearless reporting and unrel…

At the age of 12, Pat Sheedy placed his first 10p bet and concocted his first scam. This marked the beginning of his descent into a compulsive gambling addiction that would lead to close to one hundred criminal convictions, over a…

"I have come to think of all the metal in my body as artificial stars, glistening beneath the skin, a constellation of old and new metal. A map, a tracing of connections and a guide to looking at things from different angles."We t…

For all his public eminence, Seamus Heaney seems never to have lost the compelling need to write personal letters. In this ample but discriminating selection from fifty years of his correspondence, we are given access as never bef…

Jason Byrne is 17. With his leaving cert under his belt but no idea what to do next, who better to ask for advice than his dad, Paddy? There's a (very) short stint studying accountancy (he was asked to leave); a FAS course with ju…

Intimate, complex, long-lasting: the links between Ireland and US presidents extend much further and deeper than JFK. From Andrew Jackson in 1829 to Woodrow Wilson in 1913 and Joe Biden in 2021, Ireland's sway in the White House i…

A luminous and haunting memoir from the prize-winning poet - a story of love, heartbreak and coming of age, and a fearless exploration of queer identity and trauma. When Sean meets Elias, the two fall headlong into a love story. B…

For once, these men are the objects; I am the subject. Me, me, me. Rosemary Mac Cabe was always a serial monogamist - never happier than when she was in a relationship or, at the very least, on the way to being in one.But in her d…

Bestselling author Colm O'Regan is a worrier. A professional one. Caution is his watchword.Risk aversion is his love language. Now Colm is grappling with the biggest worry of all: the whole 'planet being on fire' thing and how exa…

The warm, rich and fascinating memoir of beloved broadcaster Tommie Gorman. When Tommie Gorman was growing up in Sligo in the 1960s, struggle was never far away but his household had a surplus of love and warmth. From modest begin…

Memoir Of An Irish Jew is the story of Lionel Cohen, who was born in 1922 into a Jewish family in Cork. Lionel served in the Irish Army, the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli Army and in the fledgling Israeli Merchant Navy. He re…