Irish Biography

First published in Irish by An Gum in 1965, Seosamh Mac Grianna's magnificent autobiographical novel Mo Bhealach Fein is translated here for the first time into English by Micheal O hAodha. With notes of Dead as Doornails and The Ginger Man in its absurd comedy, Mac Grianna pens his reaction to an anglicised, urbanised, post-revolution Ireland.

Not the Final Word publishes for the first time, in both Irish and English, the 1952 St Anne's Hospital recordings of Peig Sayers, made by a team from the Irish Folklore Commission.

The classic biography of the Irish revolutionary re-released to coincide with the centenary of his death on hunger strike.

They say that politics is always local. Seán Ó Neachtain first entered politics because of the lack of a public water system in his local area of Spiddal. His first years as a community activist on the local committee and as the secretary of the local chapter of Fianna Fáil was where he learned about campaigning for community issues. From there, he was invited to stand in the local elections for the Galway County Council in 1979 and a few short months later he was asked to stand in the first election for Údarás na Gaeltachta. That started a period that would last 30 years in which he served as an elected representative in public life. He stood in nine elections, three county council, four Údarás na Gaeltachta and in the elections for the European Parliament.

A portrait of the relationship between James Joyce and Nora Barnacle

In his memoir, A Life in Medicine: From Aesculapius to Beckett, Eoin O’Brien, a cardiologist with an international reputation as a clinical scientist, describes his life in medicine and literature.

Novelist, short-story writer, critic, memoirist, broadcaster and journalist: Benedict Kiely (1919-2007) was not only one of the best known but one of the most artistically and culturally distinctive men of letters of his day. His fascination with the island of Ireland, the myths and memories of its people, and the many-voiced quality of its traditions, has secured for him a unique place in the country's literary history.