Sure, It Could Happen


Book Description

Sure, It Could HappenIn the summer of 1992, the Irish city of Galway was rocked by the resignation of its Catholic Bishop after it was revealed he had fathered a son with an American divorcee. And at the same time, the city's biggest industrial employer was about to shut down - Sure It Could Happen is a collection of 17 raw short stories from a tumultuous period that changed Galway life forever.




That Place We Call Home


Book Description

John Creedon has always been fascinated by place names, from growing up in Cork City as a young boy to travelling around Ireland making his popular television show. In this brilliant new book, he peels back the layers of meaning of familiar place names to reveal stories about the land of Erin and the people who walked it before us. Travel the highways, byways and boreens of Ireland with John and become absorbed in the place names, such as 'The Cave of the Cats', 'Artichoke Road', 'The Eagle's Nest' and 'Crazy Corner'. All hold clues that help to uncover our past and make sense of that place we call home, feeding both mind and soul along the way.




The Padre


Book Description

For almost two decades, Father Patrick Ryan evaded intelligence agencies across Europe. The subject of two unsuccessful extradition requests, he was, for a time, one of the most wanted men in Britain. In The Padre, award-winning investigative journalist Jennifer O’Leary exposes the paramilitary exploits of the notorious former Irish priest and active IRA supporter – revealing sensational details unknown until now. Drawing on highly sensitive information, divulged by Ryan during exclusive secret meetings with the author, The Padre lifts the lid on the true extent of the priest’s involvement with the IRA and their campaign of terror across Europe, Britain and Ireland – from being the link between the IRA and the Gaddafi regime, to Ryan’s connection to the failed assassination attempt on Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet. Decades on, Patrick Ryan was unrepentant: ‘If I had ever met Mrs Thatcher, my parting shot would have been, I wish you well mam, but I’m sorry we missed you at Brighton.’ The Padre tells the truly remarkably story of this man of the cloth, and his lifelong struggle with what he, in his heart, believes to be right and wrong. In an exclusive interview with the author, Ryan chillingly remarked in response to whether he had an any regrets: ‘only that I wasn’t even more effective ... but we didn’t do too badly’.




The Bookman


Book Description




Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage


Book Description

The Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, are a unique geological and cultural landscape, and for centuries their stark beauty and their inhabitants’ traditional way of life have attracted pilgrims from abroad. The Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, are a unique geological and cultural landscape, and for centuries their stark beauty and their inhabitants’ traditional way of life have attracted pilgrims from abroad. After a visit with his wife in 1972, Tim Robinson moved to the islands, where he started making maps and gathering stories, eventually developing the idea for a cosmic history of Árainn, the largest of the three islands. Pilgrimage is the first of two volumes that make up Stones of Aran, in which Robinson maps the length and breadth of Árainn. Here he circles the entire island, following a clockwise, sunwise path in quest of the “good step,” in which walking itself becomes a form of attention and contemplation. Like Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia, Stones of Aran is not only a meticulous and mesmerizing study of place but an entrancing and altogether unclassifiable work of literature. Robinson explores Aran in both its elemental and mythical dimensions, taking us deep into the island’s folklore, wildlife, names, habitations, and natural and human histories. Bringing to life the ongoing, forever unpredictable encounter between one man and a given landscape, Stones of Aran discovers worlds. Robinson’s voyage continues in Stones of Aran: Labyrinth




The Hunter


Book Description

A New York Times Bestseller • A New York Times Best Thriller of the Year (So Far) • An NPR Favorite Fiction Read of 2024 • A Parade Best Book of 2024 So Far • A New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year (So Far) • Named a Best Beach Read of 2024 by Entertainment Tonight and Harper’s Bazaar “Hailed as the queen of Irish crime fiction, French spins a taut tale of retribution, sacrifice, and family.”—TIME From the New York Times bestselling author of The Searcher and “one of the greatest crime novelists writing today” (Vox), a spellbinding new novel set in the Irish countryside. It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die. Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or less: he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge. From the writer who is “in a class by herself,” (The New York Times), a nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.




Wacky Eire


Book Description

Welcome to Wacky Eire - it's stranger than fiction. Imagine RTÝ's Nationwide crossed with the cult series Eurotrash, or BBC's Country File mixed with Father Ted . . . Now imagine it as a book of true stories, written by an insider who has travelled the length and breadth of Ireland seeking out the weird, the wacky, the raunchy and the downright shocking . . . this is Wacky Eire. In this hilarious account on modern Irish life, Sunday World journalist Geraldine Comiskey takes the reader on an outrageous romp through the real Ireland - where ancient traditions and modern obsessions make lively bedfellows and where people will constantly surprise you. From naughty farmers, animal antics and dodgy faith-healers to secret swingers and strippers, from scandalous exposés to charming vignettes of rural life, Wacky Eire is the naked face of modern Ireland.




Coach Fellas


Book Description

The Coach Fellas are known to almost all tourists who traverse the Irish countryside. Ostensibly bus drivers, they are also the tour guides who provide the crucial component in the branding of “people, place, and pace” upon which Irish heritage tourism depends. Kelli Costa’s ethnography of these highly trained and informed working class men highlights a previously ignored component of the tourism industry. She also demonstrates their importance in providing a visitor-specific vision of heritage that contrasts with the realities of contemporary economic development.




St. Brendan's Well and The Black Garden


Book Description

'There are events in your life that one feels are so important, that if you were here only for those moments, it would be enough; that your participation in, or even your creation of those events, in your heart, has made a difference for those you love, and support and even better, for total strangers, that you made their world a better place ... then, yes, it is all worth it.' What brought him to this point? This story both factual, and fictional, attempts to convey a journey steered by random chance, love, and loss. It is a remembrance to the many important people who played crucial parts in the lives of the author and his father. It is an epiphany in spirituality, in the hardships of experience and the decisions made to move forward, and in the spirit that burns within the hearts of those who wish to make life a better experience for those who follow. Finally, to remember, and acknowledge, those forgotten and lost in time and hidden forever.




Mary Kate


Book Description

Dorries is the queen of the saga and she is back with a heart-wrenching, captivating new novel' Bookish Jottings. Liverpool, 1963. Mary Kate Malone is seventeen and bitterly unhappy that her father has married again after the death of her mother. On her last day at school, she decides to leave home in Tarabeg on the west coast of Ireland and head for Liverpool to find her mother's sister. But absolutely nothing goes to plan. Within hours of disembarking, she finds herself penniless and alone, with no place to stay and no idea how she will survive. Meanwhile, back in Ireland, where old sins cast long shadows, a long-buried secret is about to come to light and a day of reckoning, in the shape of a stranger from America, will set an unstoppable chain of events in motion. What readers are saying about the Tarabeg Series: 'A brilliant read, a wonderful story and I have already pre-orderd the next book' 'Great read! Nadine Dorries is a top author, love her books!' 'Did not want it to end!! Gripping, detailed... Really draws you in to the story