Ireland Memoir

Born and raised in Bundoran, with the waves of the west coast of Ireland breaking at his doorstep, Richie Fitzgerald was moulded by his environment—from his initiation to surfing at the age of 9 in the cold Atlantic water to becoming Ireland’s first ever pro surfer and competing on a global scale. But learning to surf in 1980s Ireland wasn’t without its challenges. With little to no equipment, Richie duct-taped Marigolds over woollen gloves to protect his hands from the freezing water and even melted Christening candles to pour on his board in place of surf wax.

Jonathan Swift's world-famous books - from Gulliver's Travels to A Modest Proposal - are unparalleled in their piercing critique of modern society. Half-orphaned, a Dubliner by birth, but a man who would always insist he was English, Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was a figure of great contradictions.

Cocaine Cowboys tells the story of Ireland's love affair with cocaine since it first washed ashore on Cork's rugged coast to the billion-euro trade it has become. From Ireland's first cocaine lord and his attempts to establish a direct route from Miami to Dublin to the modern-day violence that led to the brutal dismemberment of teenager Keane Mulready Woods, the book will follow the stories and the increasing chaos that has engulfed those desperate for a slice of this modern day gold rush.

In 1922, three of the Irish Republican Army's top gunmen arrived in New York City seeking ven­geance. Their target: "Cruxy" O'Connor, a young Irishman who kept switching sides as revolution swept his country in the wake of World War I. Cruxy's last betrayal dealt a blow to Ireland's struggle for independence: six of his IRA comrades were killed when he told police the location of their safe house. A year later, the IRA gunned him down before a crowd of horrified New Yorkers.

As the Religious Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times from 1997, Patsy McGarry reported on some of the most troubling scandals to have rocked both Catholic and Protestant Churches in the last few decades. In Well, Holy God, he looks back not only on his time in journalism, recalling some of the most distressing stories he has had to cover, but also his own history with Catholicism and of a faith lost when the stark realities of being part of that Church became apparent to him. This book covers the gamut of his career, from the horrors of the various clerical child sex abuse cases, the ...

There has never been a rugby player quite like Paul O'Connell. His name is synonymous with passion, heart and determination. But he is also the thinking man's rugby player, a legendary student of the game. As the heartbeat of Munster, British and Irish Lions captain in 2009 and captain of the first Ireland team to retain the Six Nations championship, O'Connell became the most beloved and respected of the golden generation of Irish rugby players - and was widely regarded as one of the very best players in the world.

Irish singing star Daniel O'Donnell's mother, Julia, grew up on a remote island off the northwest coast of Ireland, going barefoot and doing hard labour as a child during the poverty-stricken 1920s. The hard work continued through her teenage years as she picked potatoes in the fields and travelled to Scotland to gut fish in the ports. After she married and settled in Kincasslagh, Julia's beloved husband, Francie, was forced to leave his family for months on end to work on farms, again in Scotland.

Dublin, November 1856: George Little, the chief cashier of the Broadstone railway terminus, is found dead, lying in a pool of blood beneath his desk. He has been savagely beaten, his head almost severed; there is no sign of a murder weapon, and the office door is locked, apparently from the inside. Thousands of pounds in gold and silver are left untouched at the scene of the crime. Augustus Guy, Ireland's most experienced detective, teams up with Dublin's leading lawyer to investigate the murder. But the mystery defies all explanation.

At twenty-four, Betsy Cornwell runs away to Ireland. Leaving behind a painful past and chasing her lifelong dream of becoming a novelist, she finds a fresh start on the misty shores of the Aran Islands. Amid the beauty of the Irish countryside, her life takes on the glow of a fairy tale when she meets a charming horse trainer and elopes to Gretna Green. Five years later, her happy ending has twisted into a nightmare and Betsy finds herself trapped in an abusive marriage, isolated and afraid with a newborn baby.

A hilarious tale of dogs, fogs, bogs and moving to Ireland. For many years, Nick and Lesley Albert had shared a dream of living far away from the stress of modern life, and when the opportunity arose, they jumped in with both feet. Almost overnight, they decided to move to beautiful County Clare, in the west of Ireland - a country they had never before visited. With little experience or money they set about renovating a derelict farmhouse and building a new life together.

Just who was Saint Patrick? Many know him as the figure behind the huge festival of fun and drinking that takes place every year on March 17. But look a little more closely and see that there is more to the patron saint of Ireland than meets the eye.

When Richard Hayes, a gifted polymath and cryptographer, was drafted by Irish intelligence services to track the movements of a prolific Nazi spy, Hermann Görtz, it set in motion one of the most remarkable episodes in Irish history. What followed was a high-stakes game of cat and mouse that would wind its way through the capital and its suburbs, reverberate through the corridors of power, test the sympathies of those in high society and even expand to jeopardise the Allied war effort.

For Nick and Lesley Albert, swapping the hectic intensity of modern Britain for the peace of a tumble-down farmhouse in rural West Ireland was like a dream come true. But three years later, with the economy crashing and the house refurbishments unfinished, their plan for a tranquil life is falling apart. Are they in danger of replicating the very lifestyle they had hoped to escape, or can they get their lives back on track? Only time will tell.

Oliver Cromwell was an English army and statesman who led Parliamentary armies against King Charles I throughout the English Civil War. Why was he so hated by so many? And is this image of him historically correct? The reason why people thought he was so evil is because of his brutality against the Irish at that time. Several Irish and English scholars agree that Cromwell was too cruel in Ireland. Other academics accuse him of "ethnic cleansing", or the systematic expulsion of a certain ethnic population from a territory. Is this true? And why did he do this?

Looking Through You: Northern Chronicles, the sequel to renowned Belfast poet and author Gerald Dawe’s critically acclaimed In Another World: Van Morrison and Belfast, is the evocative record of the musical, literary and artistic influences that inspired and forged Dawe’s awakening as a poet, and his career in Irish literature. Taking its bearings from Belfast in the 1960s, The Beatles’ Rubber Soul album and the energising shock of reading the great American poets Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, Dawe’s engagingly lyrical style has produced an evocative and memorable record of the ...

When a violent incident in his stationed town led John Sweetman into the Garda Technical Bureau with incriminating evidence, the course of his life changed dramatically. As a young garda struggling with personal demons, he went from being on verge of leaving the force to finding his true calling. Identity is both a fascinating insight into specialist forensic fields - that peeks behind the curtain of how crimes are solved - and a bravely told story of a misfit detective in a remarkable career.

The history of the chieftains is the history of Irish music, and the story of how an unlikely group of enthusiasts came together to rescue some of the world's most beautiful music from near extinction, brought it to an audience of millions, and became acclaimed stars.

Through the eyes of one of convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally’s many victims, Ireland’s Protected Predator takes listeners on a harrowing journey through his brutal reign of terror. This shocking story explores the former basketball coach and Fianna Fáil activist’s warped obsession with handcuffs and how he blackmailed powerless children into silence by threatening to circulate Polaroid images taken during these depraved attacks.

Roddy Collins is a football man—now in the sixth decade of a career as a player (at 16 clubs), manager (12 clubs) and commentator. And he is a funny man: an unequalled raconteur with a sharp eye for the absurdities of the professional game and spectacular recall. He has made friends wherever he has gone, along with some high-quality enemies. When John Delaney said he could get Roddy a job if he'd just stop criticising him, Roddy replied that he'd 'rather dig holes in the road'.

As the train rattled westward on the outskirts of Dublin, James Berry didn’t stand out amongst his fellow passengers, but they couldn’t see the long, Italian silk rope coiled in the black leather bag by his side, nor the white cap and pinion straps, nor the revolver in his coat pocket. Galway, the winter of 1885. The violent murders of John Moylan, killed on a dark country lane, and Alice Burns, shot dead in the dining room of the Royal Hotel, have shaken the county. Now, following painstaking investigations and charged courtroom drama, justice beckons for the guilty parties.