Showing results by narrator "Aidan Kelly" in All Categories

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery that forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society - perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism.

Renowned academic Dr Sparling seeks help with his project on a remote Irish village. Historical researchers Ben and Chloe are thrilled to be chosen—until they arrive. The village is isolated and forgotten. There is no record of its history, its stories. There is no friendliness from the locals, only wary looks and whispers. The villagers lock down their homes at sundown. A nameless fear stalks the streets. Nobody will talk—nobody except one little girl. Her story strikes dread into the hearts of the newcomers. Three times you see him. Each night he comes closer.

Economic recovery, ever closer European involvement and Anglo-Irish highs were followed by Brexit lows and fresh talk of Irish unity. As the Republic enters its second century of independence, Diarmaid Ferriter tries to make historical sense of post-1990s Ireland - and what lies in the darkest corners of its archives.

Fintan O'Toole was born in 1958. His life covers Ireland's journey out of underdevelopment and domination by the Church, to the country's transformation into the relatively prosperous and tolerant society that it is today. But, along the way, there was a sectarian civil war in the North, which cast a dark shadow over the whole island, and bitter struggles for intellectual, civil and sexual freedoms. This is a very personal history by a writer who is considered by many to be the country's leading public intellectual.

A long-haired woman moves into the priest's house and sets fire to his furniture. That Christmas, the electricity goes out. A forester mortgages his land and goes off to a seaside town looking for a wife. He finds a woman eating alone in the hotel. A farmer wakes half-naked and realises the money is almost gone. And in the title story, a priest waits on the altar for a bride and battles, all that wedding day, with his memories of a love affair.

Filled with roller coaster emotions and explosive revelations of covert operations, Charlie One provides a unique, detailed and unbiased account of the secret war fought in Northern Ireland. Seán Hartnett grew up in Cork in the 1970s where he observed the worst of the northern Troubles. Despite his family’s republican ties and his own attempt to join the IRA, Hartnett shocked family and friends when he joined the British Armed Forces.

Claire Keegan continues her outstanding work with this new collection of quietly wrenching stories of despair and desire in modern-day Ireland. A writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses. A priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage—and battles his memories of a love affair that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life. And a man seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle as he mourns both his empty life and his lost love.

After fleeing the revolution and settling into the craggy cliffs of New Pythos, the dragonlords are eager to punish their usurpers and reclaim their city. Their first order of business was destroying the Callipolan food supply. Now they're coming for the dragonriders. Annie is Callipolis' new Firstrider, charged with leading the war against New Pythos. But with unrest at home, enforcing the government's rationing program risks turning her into public enemy number one.

Ireland, 1000 AD. Gormflaith is unhappily married to Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, and although a queen she struggles with her limited position. As an immortal Fomorian with the secret gift of magic, Gormflaith has a burning desire: to find and destroy the hidden fortress of her sworn enemies, the Descendants, who seek to kill her kind at all costs. She begins to use her magical powers, and discovers she is more skilled than she ever realised... but can she control what she will become?

Traumatised by the death of a child in her care, top London paediatrician Claire seeks refuge on remote Selkie Island in the wilds of the Irish Sea with her husband Daniel and their baby daughter Kitty. Hidden away in Daniel’s old family home, Claire hopes to be as cut off from her guilt as she is from the mainland, but can she find peace in a place so full of its own secrets? Twenty years earlier, Daniel’s parents left the island in a boat and never made it to the mainland.

Ximena Salomé is a gifted Mexican healer who dreams of building a family with the man she loves on the coveted land she calls home. But when Texas Rangers storm her ranch and shoot her husband dead, her dreams are burned to ashes. Vowing to honor her husband’s memory and defend her country, Ximena uses her healing skills as a nurse on the frontlines of the ravaging war.

After an audacious assassination attempt on boss Daniel Kinahan's life, the Kinahan Cartel recruited an unprecedented number of killers to retaliate against their attackers, the Hutch gang. Kinahan Assassins is the compelling behind-the-scenes account of one man's thirst for vengeance and how it proved fatal for his organization. Kinahan Assassins has the stories of the men who killed for the cartel - including vulnerable drug addicts, a former British soldier, an MMA fighter and an invisible 'Mr Nobody' who acted as a cartel quartermaster - as well as those who gave them orders.

Caught smuggling half a million euros’ worth of cocaine, Paul Keany was sexually assaulted by Venezuelan anti-drugs officers before being sentenced to eight years in the notorious Los Teques prison outside Caracas. There he was plunged into a nightmarish world of coke-fuelled killings, gun battles, stabbings, extortion and forced hunger strikes until finally, just over two years into his sentence, he gained early parole and embarked on a daring escape from South America . . .

Having been abandoned on the steps of an orphanage as an infant, lovable car thief and Dublin charmer Mahony assumed all his life that his mother had simply given him up. But when he receives an anonymous note suggesting that foul play may have led to his mother's disappearance, he sees only one option: to return to the rural Irish village where he was born and find out what really happened 26 years ago.

Struggling to cope with a tragic loss, Denis has, for the past seven years, learned to live differently. His friends are used to his strict routines. His forlorn mother puts up with his strange “no touching” antics, even though all she wants is a hug from her son. Really, the only problem is the four monsters he has for roommates. Then Rebecca, Denis’ enigmatic ex-girlfriend, returns. Shocked to meet the new Denis - a broken man, unable to manage even the most basic social interactions - she becomes fixated on bringing back the funny, charismatic man she once loved.

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him—and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church. The long-awaited new work from the author of Foster, Small Things Like These is an unforgettable story of hope, quiet heroism and tenderness.

In New Pythos, Griff is facing an execution by the dragonborn, who are furious at his betrayal. He has allies on both sides seeking to defy his fate, but the price of his freedom might come at a dear cost. And Delo will have to make a choice: follow his family, or finally surrender to his conscience.

James Joyce’s landmark novel traces the course of three characters on one summer day in Dublin. First, there’s middle-aged wanderer and appeasing cuckold Leopold Bloom. He crosses paths with Stephen Dedalus, a young aspiring writer flirting with indulgence. Among a gallery of generous, ebullient, and brawling Dubliners, Bloom and Dedalus find in each other, for a few hours, a spiritual father and son. Then there’s Molly, Leopold’s wife. Conflicted about love, marriage, motherhood, and sexual longing, she’ll spend her afternoon with a lover.

In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?