Charles: The Life and World of Charles Acton

This is a biography of the music critic and commentator, chronicling his family's history over 300 years at Kilmacurragh in County Wicklow (now a celebrated arboretum in the care of the State), and his work for the Irish Times over thirty years (1955-88). ...

Desmond Leslie (1921-2001); The Biography of an Irish Gentleman

When a guidebook to Ireland described his family as being ‘mildly eccentric', Desmond Leslie took offence and wrote to the publishers informing them that, on the contrary, the Leslies were very eccentric. Son of writer Sir Shane Leslie and brother o...

Before The House Burns

"Electric, real, utterly modern: this is a voice to welcome and to watch" - Anne Enright.

Set on Ireland's Atlantic coast, Before the House Burns is a tender, implosive first novel by an award-winning short story writer and poet. It concerns the lives ...

Dan Donnelly: Pugilist, Publican, Playboy

This book tells the remarkable story of an Irishman whose exploits in the bare-knuckle ring made him into an early 19th century folk hero. His victories over highly regarded English opponents came in the wake of several armed rebellions and were seen as sy...

Brian Bourke, Five Decades. 1960s - 2000s

The book contains writings by Seamus Heaney, Frances Ruane, Carlos Garcia-Monzon, Eva Bourke, Frankie Gavin, Rosemarie Noone, James McKenna, Desmond Egan, Patrick Murphy and Frank McGuinness. It is lavishly illustrated and surveys the entire career of this...

The House of Slamming Doors

'My name is Justin Alexander Torquhil Edward Peregrine Montague, but my father calls me 'you little bollocks', or when he is in a good mood, 'old cock'.

It's 1963 in a country house in west Wicklow during the heady summer of JFK's visit ...

Part-Time Writer: Notes & Reflections

"I can't imagine a more sensible and useful guide for the would-be writer, part-time or not" - from the Foreword by Diana Athill

Part-time Writer guides the reader through all aspects of writing - from the embryonic stages of researchi...

Print and Popular Culture in Ireland 1750-1850

This book looks at popular print culture in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Small cheap books featuring knights and heroes, highwaymen and rapparees, the Battle of Aughrim and other historical episodes circulated widely in both...

The Farm By Lough Gur

The Farm by Lough Gur was first published in London in 1937 and quickly reprinted. It was well received in England and a best-seller in Dublin. Some questioned its quiet recall of an elysian rural Ireland before the Land War, its image of a contented Victo...