Irish History and Historical Biography

Gerard Shannon - Alderman Joseph MacDonagh TD -Tipperary's Forgotten Revolutionary Politician ( 1883-1922)

Winner of Tipperariana Book of the Year 2022 Unlike his more famous oldest brother, 1916 leader Thomas MacDonagh, the story of Alderman Joseph MacDonagh, TD and has been largely forgotten. He has been referred to as 'one of the greatest young Irishman of...

John Reynolds - 46 Men Dead : The RIC in County Tipperary 1919-22 - BRAND NEW

In January 1919, at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary, two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) were killed by the IRA. In the four bloody years that followed, nearly 500 RIC men were killed and hundreds more wounded. In Tipperary alone, 46...

John Dennehy - In a Time of War : Tipperary 1914-1918 - HB

In this vivid and captivating new history, Clonmel native John Dennehy explores the profound political, economic, military and social impact of the Great War on one Irish county: Tipperary. Little has been written on the impact of the war on everyday...

Gillies Macbain - The Last Footman - PB - BRAND NEW

 In the summer of 1964, twenty-one-year-old Gillies MacBain arrives in Dublin off the ferry from England with only his bicycle, a suitcase and a tent to his name. Young, handsome and charismatic, he begins work as a footman in one of the houses of...

Debbie Blake - Little Book of Tipperary - HB - BRAND NEW

The Little Book of Tipperary is a compendium of fascinating, obscure, strange and entertaining facts about County Tipperary. Here you will find out about Tipperary’s industrial past, its proud sporting heritage, its arts and culture and...

Maeve Mulryan Moloney - Nineteenth Century Elementary Education in the archdiocese of Tuam - PB - 2001

This book explores a century of memorable cultural and educational controversies in the diocese of Tuam. It also chronicles the impetus to education achieved during the first decade of the Irish Teachers Organisation (founded 1868). It is a pioneering...

Frances Finnegan - Do Penance or Perish : A Study of Magdalen Asylums in Ireland - HB 2002 - BRAND NEW

Frances Finnegan traces the development of Ireland's Magdalen Asylums - homes that were founded in the mid-nineteenth century for the detention of prostitutes undergoing reform. The inmates of these asylums were discouraged - and many forcibly prevented...

Gráinne Hurley - Gratefully and Affectionately - Mary Lavin and the New Yorker - HB - BRAND NEW

The first ever book about Mary Lavin's 18-year working relationship with The New Yorker and a fascinating insight into the lives of two brilliant 20th-century literary women.  Between 1958 and 1976, the Irish-American writer Mary Lavin published...

Gareth Prendergast - Clear Hold Build - How the Free State Army won the Irish Civil War - PB - BRAND NEW

What was achieved by the Free State during the Irish Civil War was remarkable. Within a period of less than a year they raised and equipped a standing National Army of nearly 60,000 soldiers, defeating the anti-Treaty elements of the IRA. Using the...

Elizabeth Coxhead - Lady Gregory : A Literary Portrait - HB - 1961

A first edition, published by Macmillan UK, 1961, lacking the original dustjacket. Asolid coipy in red/maroon cloth withtitles in gilt on black panel to spine. Illustrated.  Augusta Gregory was a cornerstone of the Irish Literary Revival. Her books...

Bob Quinn - The Atlantean Irish : Ireland's Oriental and Maritime Heritage - PB - BRAND NEW

The main argument of Quinn's book dismissed as myth the popular belief in the origins of the ancient inhabitats of Ireland  and propose instead that they are part of a common 'Atlantean' culture that includes the western seaboard of Europe and North...

Jo Kerrigan & Richard Mills - Irish Fairy Forts : Portals to the Past - HB - BRAND NEW

Far more than just a faint echo of the past, Ireland’s fairy forts are still vibrantly alive. The traditions connected to them are so powerful that, even today, people rarely interfere with Irish fairy forts or fairy trees. They aren’t built...

Chris Moore - Kincora: Britain’s Shame – Mountbatten, MI5, the Belfast Boys’ Home Sex Abuse Scandal and the British Cover-Up - PB - BRAND NEW

For over four decades the story of the extraordinary evil that occurred at the Kincora Boys’ Home in East Belfast in the 1970s and the shocking attempts by MI5 to cover it up have haunted our political and social terrain for decades. Award-winning...

Liam Maher - I Remember Neil Kevin - HB 1990

Seamus Murphy - STONE MAD ( 50th Anniversary Edition ) - Mercier PB ( BRAND NEW)

    ‘In the sharply formal conversations of the stonemen, the bittersweet flavour of provincial Ireland is presented with neither sentiment nor adornment.‘ —William Trevor, The Guardian ‘The men who have gone before us...

Evelyn Conlon & Rebecca Pelan - After the Train : Irishwomen United and a Network of Change- PB - BRAND NEW

Irishwomen United and a Network of Change The vast accomplishments of modern Irish feminism would look very different without the courageous, yet often overlooked, efforts of Irishwomen United activists in the years following the Contraceptive Train...

Leeann Lane - Dorothy Macardle - PB - BRAND NEW

Dorothy Macardle - literary teacher, propagandist journalist, political playwright, gothic fiction novelist - is a multi-faceted woman who has remained too often below the radar of historical recognition. In Dorothy Macardle Leeann Lane intends to change...

Flor McCarthy - The President's Letters : An Unexpected History of Ireland - HB - BRAND NEW 2022

With over 400 letters, memos, cards, telegrams, drawings, notes and photographs, The Presidents’ Letters reveals a personal and unexpected story of Ireland since the inauguration of our first president, Douglas Hyde...

Nuala O'Faolain - Almost There : A Memoir - PB - BRAND NEW

Nuala O’Faolain’s first memoir Are You Somebody? became a literary sensation and an international bestseller when it was published by New Island Books in 1996. It launched a new life for its author, at a time when she had long since let go of...

Robert Gibbings - Lovely is the Lee : Hardcover 1945 - Illustrated Cork Galway Travel - US Edition

A hardcover first US edition ( originally 1945) of Robert Gibbings's Lovely is the Lee, published by H Woolf, New York. The title is slightly misleading, as the book is as much about Galway and Conamara as it is about Cork, half being given to each...

Wolfe Tone - The Autobiography of Theobold Wolfe Tone Volume II 1796-1798 ( Edited by R.Barry O'Brien) - HB

Since its initial publication in 1826, the Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, comprising the autobiography as well as a collection of his journals, letters and political writings, has been regarded by historians as an indispensable source for the history of...

Mark Tierney - Croke of Cashel : The Life of Archbishop Thomas William Croke 1832-1902 - HB - SIGNED

Hardcover, first edition, signed by the author Mark Tierney, and dedicated, dated ''31 Dec 1976, Glenstal Abbey'' A hard to find edition of the biography of notable 19th century patron of the GAA and a key figure in 19th century domestic issues,...

Robert O'Byrne - Luggala Days : The Story of a Guinness House - HB 1st Edition 2012

Hidden inside a secluded Irish valley lies Luggala, an exquisite eighteenth-century house at the centre of a 5,000-acre estate. In 1937 Ernest Guinness presented Luggala to his youngest daughter, Oonagh – one of the three famous ‘Golden...

Conor Cruise O'Brien - States of Ireland -HB -1972

'States of Ireland is a masterly study of the whole complex Irish Situation as it existed in the early 1970's . Part history , part autobiography, part political analysis, part diary, it is a brilliant and distinctive contribution with much wit. Dr...

J Anthony Gaughan - Olivia Mary Taaffe 1832-1918 - HB

Taaffe, Olivia Mary (1832–1918), founder of St Joseph's Young Priests Society, was born in 1832 in Annagh House, Ballyglunin, seven miles from Tuam, Co. Galway. Olivia and her sister (later Sr Mary Ignatius of the Presentation Sisters, Midleton)...

Catherine Rynne - Knock 1879-1979 - HB 1979 ( Mayo History) )

The hardcover edition of an uncommon title. Published by Veritas, 1979, partly for the centenary anniversary of the events of 1879, and probably with a view to the then current 1979 papal visit also.  Both a history of the events of 1879, and the...

B M Walker - Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland 1801-1922 - HB - 1978

Hardcover, RIA, 1978. An ancillary publication to the multi-volume New History of Ireland Series. , published 1978.  A full and detailed listying of every election from the Act of Union to the 1918 election that saw the rise of Sinn Féin...

Pádraig Ó Héalaí - Snátha den Seansaol - Strands of Traditional Life - PB - BRAND NEW

Cad é ról an bhéaloidis sa tsochaí thraidisiúnta in Éirinn? Conas a mhúnlaigh seantuiscintí saol an phobail? Sa bhailiúchán aistí seo a chuimsíonn cuid mhaith de...

Trevor White - Malton's Views of Dublin : The Story of a Georgian City - HB - BRAND NEW

Commentary by Trevor White with essays by Diarmuid Ó Gráda, David Dickson, Graham Hickey, Merlo Kelly and Kathryn Milligan. HARDCOVER, BRAND NEW.  In the 1790s a young artist decided to create a portrait of Dublin. James...

Kevin Rafter - Taoisigh and the Arts - PB - BRAND NEW

Kevin Rafter’s short book is an entertaining taste of the use and abuse of the arts in Ireland by successive Taoisigh. It covers a century of cultural policy juxtaposed with artistic responses of the times, to reveal a story of official neglect and...

Ray Burke - Joyce County : Galway and James Joyce - BRAND NEW

Foreword by Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland. Written in an accessible style for the general reader, this book contains considerable new information, such as the first detailed accounts of the suspicious grounding of a passenger ship in Galway...

Frank McDonald - A Little History of the Future of Dublin - PB - BRAND NEW

A superb analysis by Frank McDonald on the past, present and future of Dublin as imagined by various planners over its history (as well as the various ideas of the ‘future’ of the city they suggested), coinciding with an exhibition on the...

Pat McCarthy - A History of the Irish Pharmaceutical Industry : Making Medicines for the World

Ireland has become a key manufacturing centre for the global pharmaceutical market and in turn pharmaceutical manufacturing is now the backbone of the Irish manufacturing sector. How the industry evolved from small firms that supplied the Irish market...

Tony Gaynor - Commanders of the British Forces in Ireland - 1796-1922 - HB - BRAND NEW

In December 1922 General Nevil Macready sailed away from Dublin for the last time, marking the end of British rule in most of Ireland. Macready was the last in a long line of commanders of the British army in Ireland. The contribution of these men to...

Robert Collins - Noraid and the Northern Ireland Troubles 1970-1994 - HB - BRAND NEW

Since the end of the eighteenth century, the United States has offered sanctuary and support to Irish men and women engaged in the struggle for Irish independence from Britain. When violence broke out in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, the newly...

Mary Kenny / 3 Days In September: When the Pope Came to Ireland (Hardback)

Leading figures from the worlds of politics, entertainment, religion and the arts contribute their recollections of - and reflections on - the papal visit in September 1979. Many of those who were personally or professionally involved in the visit offer...

Paul Clements - A Year in the Woods : Montalto Through the Seasons - BRAND NEW

‘The knockings of autumn are making themselves heard in the rustle of the leaves and whistle of the chilly wind. Spiderwebs are festooned on hedges and a spider is poised at the centre of one. In the fleeting morning sunshine the webs light up in...

Cormac Moore - The Root of All Evil : The Irish Boundary Commission

In May 1922, James Craig described the Boundary Commission as the ‘root of all evil’ for Ulster unionists. Conversely, it ultimately bolstered the unionist cause, leaving the border unchanged and abandoning swathes of Northern nationalists...

Jonathan Trigg - Death in Derry: Martin McGuinness and the Derry IRA’s War Against the British - PB - BRAND NEW

When civil rights protests in the 1960s gave way to armed struggle, the Provisional IRA in Derry – both city and county – led the fight against the British security forces. In the city Martin McGuinness – a young butcher’s...

Lin Rose Clark - Swift Blaze Of Fire : The Life of Robert Hilliard - PB - BRAND NEW

Celebrated in song by Christy Moore and affectionately recalled in many memoirs, Robert "Bob" Hilliard, the author's grandfather, is one of Ireland's best-known International Brigadistas. His short life blazed with a rare intensity; his death in Spain...

Leeann Lane - Mary MacSwiney - BRAND NEW

Until now, in-depth analysis of key female figures in Irish republicanism in the early twentieth century has been limited. Mary MacSwiney was one of the most single-minded anti-Treaty women, leading Eamon de Valera to describe her as...

Patrick Gallagher / My Story - Paddy the Cope (Vintage Paperback)

      All of our Vintage books are Pre barcode the picture shown is the actual book you will receive.

Dr Andrew Rynne / Abortion : The Irish Question (Vintage Paperback)

Published 1982 ( so before the 1983 Amendment)  Every year, 60 million abortions are carried out around the world. Here in Ireland, the campaign to amend the Constitution has stirred up fierce controversy. Questions of fact, opinion and motive are...

Oliver St. John Gogarty / As I was Going Down Sackville Street (Vintage Paperback)

      All of our Vintage books are Pre barcode the picture shown is the actual book you will receive.

John M Feehasn - The Shooting of Michael Collins - Vintage PB 1981

Was Michael Collins killed by an accident of war or was he ruthlessly murdered? Both of these possibilities are calmly and carefully examined by the author, who has rejected the traditional theory that he was killed as a result of a ricochet rifle bullet...

Peter Somerville-Large / An Irish Childhood (Hardback)

Peter Somerville-Large grew up with his brother Phil in a nursery world at the top of a smart house in Dublin from where they could watch Fitzwilliam Place far below, with the horse drawn delivery vans, the animals being driven to market, and their...

Fiona Biggs / The Pocket Book of Great Irish Speeches: Inspiring and Provocative Speeches from 1782 to Today (Hardback)

Relive some of the most significant moments of Ireland's recent past through the feats of oration that have, time and again, inspired Ireland's people to action.     All of our books are second hand, and while you may not get the exact copy...

Sharon Slater - The Little Book of Limerick - PB - 2014

The Little Book of Limerick is a compendium of fascinating information about the city and county, past and present. Here you will find out about Limerick's buildings and bridges, crime and punishment, tragic accidents, and its famous (and occasionally...

Charles Callan & Barry Desmond / Labour in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown: Elections & Candidates 1919 - 1999 (Hardback)

This book covers many decades and is divided into two parts,the first dealing with elections, the second with the candidates. A full history of Labour ( and the wider Irish Labour political movement ) in the district, as thesources required for such a...

Kevin Rafter - Dillon Rediscovered : The Newspaperman Who Befriended Kings, Presidents and Oil Tycoons - BRAND NEW

Emile Joseph Dillon witnessed some of the most dramatic events the world has ever seen including, the assassination of a Russian Tsar, the Dreyfus court martial and bloody massacres in Armenia. At a time of shifting geopolitics and the birth of modern...

Lucy Elphinstone / Dana - An Autobiography

      All of our books are second hand, and while you may not get the exact copy shown in the picture, all of our books are in very good condition. Removing stickers from a book may damage it, so we refrain from doing so. If you see a...

George O'Brien / The Village of Longing & Dancehall Days

  The Village of Longing, George O’Brien’s narrative of his childhood in the  river-valley settlement of Lismore, Co. Waterford, during the 1950s, has established itself as a contemporary classic since its initial publication in...