Irish Interest Books

Skulls, heads, hands, height, legs, sex organs, blood, brains, stomachs, ears and corpses – discover Irish history through the prism of the body. From the brutal beheading of the 25-year-old, red-headed Clonycavan Man some 2,000 y…

The first recorded game of ladies’ Gaelic football was played in St James’ Park, Dublin, in 1920. Players competed in ankle-length skirts, watched by a sizeable crowd. But the game was not authorised by the GAA and, in the decades…

On a solo trip with her best friend to a Wexford caravan park, a barely 18-year-old virginal (ish) Emma Doran discovers it only takes one time to change your life forever and end up covered in stretch marks. Finding herself prepar…

By 1588, relations between the superpower of the time, Catholic Spain and the relatively small Protestant England had deteriorated to a new low. Philip II had decided that the best way to deal with English piracy and its support f…

The incomparable George Hamilton returns with a superb offering of travails and anecdotes spanning his five decades on our airwaves and on our screens, always at the heart of Irish culture. Picking up where his first offering, The…

The Cork Folk Festival has played an integral part in the history of Cork music since 1979. Over a period of 45 years it has presented an annual festival which encourages musicians, enchants audiences and contributes to the cultur…

1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away.Over t…

Ireland is a strikingly different country now to the one it was in the mid-1990s. Dramatic economic, social and cultural changes, including the Celtic Tiger boom and increasingly secular debate about abortion, the status of women …

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? Maybe you've given up, or don't know where to start? Well, is fada an bóthar nach mbíonn casadh ann - long is th…

Rita agus an Dineasár – Rita would love to own a pet.  But she’s not interested in having a cat, dog or goldfish.  Rita’s dream pet is a …. dinosaur!  They could play together.  Go for walks together.  Even eat together!

Is Cailín beag í Rita le smaointe Móra. Nuair a éiríonn sí crosta, samhlaíonn sí go bhfuil dragún fíochmhar feargach aici a chuirfeadh an domhan ar crith.Ach is Féidir tine the na feirge a cheansú, agus tá a fhios ag Rita cén dóig…

Insíonn Susan óg an scéal fíorspéisiúil tochtmhar seo faoin samhradh nuair a bhí sí ocht mbliana d’aois, agus nuair ba bheag nár bádh a deartháir Bruno san fharraige. D’éirigh léi snámh ar ais chuig an trá leis, áit ar éirigh sé a…

Nan lives alone at No. 14 Bóthar na gCastán.  Builders are coming to work on the empty house next door and Nan has her own opinion of all of them.  According to Nan’s three grown-up children she won’t have a moment’s peace.  But w…

In June 1940, the fall of France prompted General Charles de Gaulle to make an impassioned rallying call to his fellow citizens to fight back against the Germans. His famous radio speech, broadcast from the BBC in London, was late…

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 …

Tom Ryan was arrested at his home, near Thomastown, on the night of 5 February 1921. He was held initially in Kilkenny before he was transferred to Kilworth 'rest camp' near Fermoy in mid-March and, on 17 May, to Spike Island inte…

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…

Country houses may be triumphs of architecture, fine and decorative art, and landscape design, but they are also about the history and transmission of ideas. In varying degrees their occupants thought, conversed, read, and respond…

Cork is a new, revised edition of a book first published in 1977. In it, a sequence of poems about her native city by one of the finest living writers articulates what is silently revealed in a visual portrait of Ireland's Souther…

A highly illustrated and portable identification guide to the most common wild flowers and other plants. This innovative photographic guide covers the most common wild flowers and other plants found in Britain and Ireland, as defi…

From the first prehistoric inhabitants of the island to the Windsor Framework for Northern Ireland, this uniquely concise account of Ireland and its people reveals how modern Irish society is the product of a rich, multivalent his…

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…

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 …

First published by David Myler (Mealagh Valley Community Development Association) in 1998, ‘An Archaeological Survey of the Mealagh Valley’ highlights many sites of historical and archaeological interest in the Mealagh Valley, nor…

John Moriarty was an original, a thinker, a poet, a mythologian. He was born and reared just outside the little village of Moyvane in north Kerry. Growing up on his parent’s farm he was attuned to the rhythms of weather and soil f…

A wonderful walk through the story of Moriarty’s childhood growing up on a small farm in north Kerry, and his lifelong engagement with traditional Catholic sacraments, taking as his point of departure Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Church …

Bannister is back! The author of the bestselling Proverbs in Irish and What’s That as Gaeilge? returns with another indispensable guide to the Irish language. This comprehensive compendium includes a thematic index and lists of sy…