Secondhand Irish Biography Books

A biography of Sam Hanna Bell, the Ulster broadcaster and writer, based on Bell's personal papers and the reminscences of family, friends and colleagues. Born in Glasgow of Ulster emigrant...

The biggest regret of Michael Healy-Rae's life was a time he didn't talk when somebody needed him the most. After that, he vowed to never stop talking, listening and trying...

In her hilarious debut, Maeve Higgins smashes the brittle veneer on the creme brulee of life and hands around spoons, so we can all taste the delicious absurdity that lies...

Malachy McCourt, actor, gadfly and raconteur follows up his international best sellerA Monk Swimming with this, the second instalment of his hilarious memoirs. Malachy McCourt grew up in Limerick amid...

Patrick Deeley's train journey home to rural East Galway in autumn 1978 was a pilgrimage of grief: his giant of a father had been felled, the hurley-making workshop silenced. From...

Every young person is looking for freedom, but some have to fight harder than others ...In 1960s Ireland there was a special place for disabled children: behind the walls of...

'I entered Goldenbridge orphanage in my Communion outfit. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing there.'At age seven, Bernadette Fahy was delivered with her three brothers to Goldenbridge...

The Making of an Artist is a fascinating portrayal of the formative years of Micheal MacLiammoir, actor, playwright, artist, linguist, raconteur and co-founder of the Gate Theatre. Born in Cockney...

C.S.Lewis was a prolific writer and a man capable of inspiring both devotion and hostility. This book charts the progress of Lewis from Ulster to Oxford where he was 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...

Woven into the story of his life and the national events of his times are the equally dramatic changes in which he participated during his twenty-seven years with the Irish...

A stroke of luck.

When Jordan Ferguson was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of thirty-five and told he had only months to live, a psychologist advised him to write a letter to...

A comic book character is born, the youngest of sixteen, into a war torn country. Facing extreme brutality at school and on the streets, not to mention the oppression of...

Desmond Doyle, 29, a painter and decorator, is married with six children and living in the infamous Fatima Mansions in Dublin in 1953. One day he comes home to find...

Desmond Doyle, 29 a painter and decorator, is married with six children and living in the infamous Fatima Mansions in Dublin in 1953. One day he comes home to find...

In We Have a Good Time...Don't We? Maeve Higgins, comedian and lady, smashes the brittle veneer on the creme brulee of life and hands around spoons, so we can all...

McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winning look back at his childhood. "It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while..." Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's sad,...

When Molly McCloskey was a young girl, her brother Mike - fourteen years her senior - started showing signs of paranoid schizophrenia. By the time Molly was old enough to...