Ireland Memoir

Gareth O'Callaghan is one of Irish radio's most popular and familiar voices. In 2018, after receiving a life-changing diagnosis, he retired from full-time work and gave up the career in radio that he had loved for decades. Here, in this deeply personal memoir, he tells his story of love and hope. From the moments after his doctor uttered the words Multiple System Atrophy to how, drawing on inner reserves and determination, he pulled himself from the darkness to come to terms with a new way of living.

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?

The stories of two undercover agents: the man known as Stakeknife, Force Research Unit (FRU) agent and deputy head of the IRA’s infamous ‘Nutting Squad’, the internal security force which tortured and killed suspected informers; and Brian Nelson, who worked for the FRU, aiding loyalist terrorists and murderers in their bloody work. The inside story on: – How the British Secret Service uses informers – The recruitment, briefing and handling of spies – Murders and set-ups in Northern Ireland.

Discover the remarkable life of Brian Boru.... Ireland is a country steeped in history, myth, and legend. During ancient times a long line of kings reined over this fairytale land, and one of those kings was a man named Brian Boru. Ruling the Emerald Isle from 1002 to 1014, Brian’s tenure is indeed so immersed in mythology that it is sometimes hard to glean the fact from the fiction. But Brian Boru himself was not the product of a fanciful tale - he did indeed exist in the flesh.

This is the true story of an unknown American politician who played a critical role in ending centuries of conflict in Northern Ireland. Without the president's permission, and breaking every conventional rule about how to deal with terrorists, former congressman Bruce Morrison helped end a conflict that most observers thought would continue indefinitely.

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 ...

As a young boy growing up in the outskirts of Dublin, Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills near his home, at the edge of a rapidly encroaching city. Born to working-class parents and the eldest of six children, he harboured a childhood desire to become a priest. When he was 11 years old, Byrne found himself crossing the Irish Sea to join a seminary in England. Four years later, Byrne had been expelled and he quickly returned to his native city. There he took odd jobs as a messenger boy and a factory labourer to get by.

When Manny McDonnell was 12, he awoke to discover British troops surrounding his home in the toughest area of trouble-torn Belfast. Encouraged by a fiercely Republican mother, he took to the streets with other school kids, throwing bricks, bottles and petrol bombs at soldiers. Jailed at 15 for having IRA links, he became a unit commander leading deadly missions for the INLA before joining the IPLO, a group so vicious even the IRA ordered it to disband. But his decades of commitment to a free united Ireland turned to disillusion when bombs killed two little boys in mainland Britain.

During Katherine Zappone's second year in ministerial office, her wife Ann Louise Gilligan suffered a major brain haemorrhage that left her blind—a tragedy marking the beginning of a profound transformation in their lives. Their partnership, defined by a deep love and shared commitment to human rights, guided landmark Irish battles for marriage equality and reform of Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion. But their greatest challenge lay before them.

'Money is handy for doing messages' was a phrase the young Tommie Gorman heard from his father, growing up in Sligo in the 1960s. Struggle was never far away but their household had a surplus of love and warmth. From modest beginnings as a local reporter at the Western Journal, where his deadlines were dependent on the bus schedule, Tommie landed at RTÉ, taking up the post of North-West correspondent in 1980. Over the next four decades he became a familiar presence in Irish homes, known for his coverage of Europe and Northern Ireland.

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.

Staying on in Northern Ireland as a civilian after years of working on undercover missions against terrorists, Rob eventually gains employment in Bristol, undertaking security work, but things don’t work out and Rob ends up living in a squat. After a job offer from an old colleague, Rob heads to London to work in close-protection security for some of Hollywood’s royalty and later becomes involved in the rescue of some very well-connected people from a dangerous religious cult. Rob’s life seems to be getting back on track. But Rob’s work soon becomes more covert.

Lead singer of the hugely successful Irish rock band Kodaline, Steve Garrigan plays to thousands of fans worldwide - his business is being in the spotlight. But for years, Steve was privately battling his own demons. Here in this deeply personal memoir, he shares his experiences.

Lindsay Ireland enjoyed an idyllic childhood. She spent her summers in Vermont with her movie-star relatives where she rode horses, played detective with her cousin, and drank ice-cold lemonade. After the summer months, Lindsay returned to her loving family where her biggest worry was getting good grades in school. Then one day, Lindsay noticed blood in her stool.

As a young girl growing up in Jamaica, Jozanne Marie's greatest desire was to restore a missing ancestral link and satisfy a longing for the one person she believed could affirm her identity: Her father. He had left for America when she was just an infant. After five years living on the island with an emotionally unavailable mother and a young grandmother (hiding a pocket full of secrets), her father made his triumphant return. He drove up in a white 1980s Volkswagen Beetle, enchanting as a dream. Tragically, her supposed redeemer became her greatest adversary.

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.

A murder in Belfast of gangland's most wanted man, Robbie Lawlor, uncovers a web of betrayal that spans out across the Irish underworld and beyond. Follow a bloody trail that leads all the way into the heart of one of the worst gang feuds Ireland has ever seen which culminates in the Narco style dismemberment of a teenage boy, Keane Mulready Woods. And as the curtain is pulled back on the inner workings of the world of organised crime, a cast of ruthless characters take centre stage for their place in a double-cross plot that feels like a fast-paced thriller.

Colin Bateman grew up in the pleasant seaside town of Bangor in Northern Ireland. Ten miles away, the IRA, the UDA and the UVF were blowing Belfast apart, but he was more concerned with making his first million through the GBA – the Gerbil Breeding Association (sadly short-lived when his gerbils turned out to be cannibals). Inspired by All the President’s Men and The Odessa File to become a crusading journalist, Bateman joined the local paper when he was a seventeen-year-old punk rocker, where instead of bringing down Presidents and finding Nazis, he found himself being hunted down by ...

Antonia Fraser deals with each woman in turn with sympathy - the sympathy they deserve for having had the unenviable fate of being Henry's wife. Inevitably, there was great rivalry between them; there was jealousy too: the desperate jealousy of queens who found themselves abandoned, but also the sexual jealousy of the king who discovered himself betrayed. The story Antonia Fraser tells is romantic and cruel, funny and sad, dramatic and enthralling. This is historical biography at its best.

Anjelica Huston's life, once she turned 15 and moved to London, is a who's who of popular culture from the Rolling Stones in late '60s London to the Chelsea Hotel in New York when she was modeling in the early '70s, to Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in '70s and '80s Los Angeles, to Hunter Thompson in Aspen. She is a force who has won every possible acting award, working with some of the greatest directors of her time, and a friend to many of the greatest artists, writers, actors and musicians.