Irish Non-Fiction

Ireland and India seem far apart, with apparently little in common in terms of culture, language, and tradition. Yet appearances can be deceiving: there are, in fact, remarkable similarities between the cultures that, once noticed…

Ireland is home to a wonderful variety of bird species, many of these build nests of astonishing complexity and intricacy, others lay eggs that are breathtaking in their beauty. Irish Birds, Their Nests and Eggs provides a guide t…

What are Irish Court Cairns? And what are Portal Tombs? Are Irish megalithic sites really older than the Great Pyramid? What does Irish rock art mean? What were the ancients up to? In this unique illustrated pocket book, legendary…

From late 1994 to June 1997 Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left were a coalition government led by John Bruton, arguably the most left-wing government in the history of the state. Shane Kenny provides the reader with the ultimat…

Lost Gaels is the first comprehensive account of the devastating impact of the Troubles on the GAA, providing a platform for bereaved family and friends to pay homage to their lost loved ones.

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', …

Brighid 'Biddy' McLaughlin, the acclaimed Irish journalist and storyteller, has endured unthinkable tragedy—the murder of her beloved sister Siobhan and the devastating drowning of her husband. Yet, in the face of overwhelming gri…

In The Hike Life: 50 More to Explore, Rozanna Purcell showcases 50 more trails, showing off new areas around Ireland from popular hikes to lesser known trails. There are fantastic hikes like Strickeen in the Gap of Dunloe, Urris L…

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 Abandoned Ireland 2, photographer Rebecca Brownlie travels further off the beaten path to explore and showcase Ireland’s forgotten buildings before nature or the demolition man claims them forever.

In the dusk hours of a November evening in 2020, James Crombie set out for the shore of Lough Ennell, Co. Westmeath with no goal except to find a brief reprieve from the chaos of modern life. One of Ireland's most lauded sports ph…

June 1849: Dr William Wilde, passing a wretched hovel in Dublin’s Liberties, discovers James Clarence Mangan in a state of indescribable misery and squalor. Aged just 46, the man dubbed ‘Ireland’s National Poet&r…

Change is the breath of life.The foot at rest meets nothing.Practice makes mastery. Proverbs exist all around the world, in every culture, and they stand the test of time because of their potential to reveal the secrets to leading…

The reader's passport to an Irish boyhood in a less frantic, more adventurous age, reliving a time of skinned knees and home-made go-karts, clean dirt, Saturday night baths and the kind of sweets that'd nearly cost you your teeth,…

We Irish have enriched the English language with a slew of snazzy gems. Did you know we’re the ones behind quarks, electrons and vectors, Sudocrem and Wellington boots? No surprise that we invented begrudgery, but croquet and Wund…

Did you know that bees have been around for over 100 million years? Or that the Brehon Laws included judgments about the rightful ownership of swarms? And why Irish beekeepers plant bluebells around their hives? From the perfectio…

Jesuit priest and amateur photographer, Fr Francis Browne is renowned for his images of the Titanic. However, much less well-known are the pictures that Fr Browne took of Irish country houses over a decade from 1946 onward. At the…

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…

To mark his 70th birthday Michael Harding travelled to Spain and walked the Camino de Santiago.Yet, as he set off on his pilgrimage, he found he wasn't alone. Accompanying him on his 126-kilometre walk in the heat of the Spanish s…

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…

A unique presentation of Irish country house interiors, combining well-preserved historic estates with adventurous contemporary restorations, celebrating some of the most characterful houses in Ireland. Forgoing the criteria of st…

Loinnir: The sunlight sparkling on the waves, or the merriness you feel after early pints of stout in the morning.  When you speak in Irish, every word is a tiny poem that reveals a new perspective. The Irish language is our inher…

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…

On Skellig Michael, thousands of birds appear and disappear, erecting towers, coming together in wings of movement which build and unravel over the empty sea.Often, no one else is there to stand beside me on the island. The mind w…

Martin Doyle, Books Editor of The Irish Times, offers a personal, intimate history of the Troubles seen through the microcosm of a single rural parish, his own, part of both the Linen Triangle – heartland of the North’s defining i…

An original and fascinating history of Dublin that tells the story of the city through its bridges. Dublin started life on the south bank of the River Liffey and for six or seven centuries that is more or less where the town staye…

At her death in 2020, Eavan Boland left a formidable body of work – poems and prose. Together they transformed Irish poetry and had a considerable influence throughout the English-speaking world. She was also a major essayist, who…

How do you feel about embracing Ireland's native tongue? At odds after a tricky relationship at school? Maybeyou've given up, or don't know where to start?Well, is fada an bóthar nach mbíonn casadh ann - long is the road that has …

If the past is another country – what happens when we revisit it, one day a year?Carlo Gébler has done just that. Here is the story of Ireland – from the tail end of the Troubles to the Good Friday agreement, to the glory days of …

For the first time ever, OUT OF SIGHT! explores the rich history of sport and leisure as experienced by Ireland’s blind and vision impaired athletes, their families, friends, and coaches, as recounted in interviews with Joe Geragh…