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Is it possible to be young, progressive and a Catholic? Ellen Coyne is about to find out ... 'You know, this isn't a Catholic country anymore,' someone proudly declared in a Dublin pub where Ellen Coyne was celebrating the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. About to turn 30, like many her age, Ellen had left the Church a long time ago, but she had never stopped believing in and talking to God. Now, she suddenly realised she wasn't quite ready for this statement to be true, however much of a contradiction it seemed to present with some of her most strongly held views. Abandoning the Church had been an act of protest, a form of punishment. However, she began to wonder: who had really lost the most? Why should those who did the damage to the Church get to keep it and all its good bits, like going to Mass for the ritual and the community, having a clear guide for living a better life, and the comfort of believing it's not the end when somebody dies?But how could she ally herself to an institution she doesn't entirely agree with? In her first book, Ellen tries to figure out how much she really wants to go back to the Church, and if it is even the right thing to do. A stunningly intelligent and thoughtful debut work of non-fiction. ISBN 9780717188949 -
A remarkable first collection by an important new poet. In this collection, Seán Hewitt gives us poems of a rare musicality and grace. By turns searing and meditative, these are lyrics concerned with the matter of the world, its physicality, but also attuned to the proximity of each moment, each thing, to the spiritual. Here, there is sex, grief, and loss, but also a committed dedication to life, hope and renewal. Drawing on the religious, the sacred and the profane, this is a collection in which men meet in the woods, where matter is corrupted and remade. There are prayers, hymns, vespers, incantations, and longer poems which attempt to propel themselves towards the transcendent. In this book, there is always the sense of fragility allied with strength, a violence harnessed and unleashed. The collection ends with a series of elegies for the poet's father: in the face of despair, we are met with a fierce brightness, and a reclamation of the spiritual. 'This is when / we make God, and speak in his voice.'Paying close attention to altered states and the consolations and strangeness of the natural world, this is the first book from a major poet. *SHORTLISTED for Dalkey Literary Awards Emerging Writer of the Year 2021* ISBN 9781787332263 -
*Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2020* *Winner of non-fiction book of the year at the Irish Book Awards* -'Utterly magnificent. Raw, thought-provoking and galvanising; this is a book every woman should read.'Eimear McBride. I have come to think of all the metal in my body as artificial stars, glistening beneath the skin, a constellation of old and new metal. A map, a tracing of connections and a guide to looking at things from different angles. How do you tell the story of a life in a body, as it goes through sickness, health, motherhood? How do you tell that story when you are not just a woman but a woman in Ireland? In the powerful and daring essays in Constellations Sinead Gleeson does that very thing. All of life is within these pages, from birth to first love, pregnancy to motherhood, terrifying sickness, old age and loss to death itself. Throughout this wide-ranging collection she also turns her restless eye outwards delving into work, art and our very ways of seeing. In the tradition of some of our finest life writers, and yet still in her own spirited, generous voice, Sinead takes us on a journey that is both uniquely personal and yet universal in its resonance. Here is the fierce joy and pain of being alive. 'Breathtaking and sublime.' - Nina Stibbe. 'Absolutely extraordinary and life-enhancing.' - Daisy Buchanan, author of How to be Grown-up. ISBN 9781509892778 -
One night in December 1972, Jean McConville, a mother of ten, was abducted from her home in Belfast and never seen alive again. Her disappearance would haunt her orphaned children, the perpetrators of the brutal crime and a whole society in Northern Ireland for decades. Through the unsolved case of Jean McConville's abduction, Patrick Radden Keefe tells the larger story of the Troubles, investigating Dolours Price, the first woman to join the IRA, who bombed the Old Bailey; Gerry Adams, the politician who helped end the fighting but denied his IRA past; and Brendan Hughes, an IRA commander who broke their code of silence. A gripping story forensically reported, Say Nothing explores the extremes people will go to for an ideal, and the way societies mend - or don't - after long and bloody conflict. ISBN 9780008159269 -
The first volume in Tim Robinson's phenomenal Connemara Trilogy - which Robert Macfarlane has called 'One of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English'. In its landscape, history and folklore, Connemara is a singular region: ill-defined geographically, and yet unmistakably a place apart from the rest of Ireland. Tim Robinson, who established himself as Ireland's most brilliant living non-fiction writer with the two-volume Stones of Aran, moved from Aran to Connemara nearly twenty years ago. This book is the result of his extraordinary engagement with the mountains, bogs and shorelines of the region, and with its folklore and its often terrible history: a work as beautiful and surprising as the place it attempts to describe. ISBN 9781844880669 -
A spectacular new title from world-renowned artist Oliver Jeffers, creator of the million-copy selling, global phenomenon Here We Are! What shall we build, you and I? I'll build your future and you'll build mine. We'll build a watch to keep our time. A father and daughter set about laying the foundations for their life together. Using their own special tools, they get to work; building memories to cherish, a home to keep them safe and love to keep them warm. From renowned, internationally bestselling picture-book creator and visual artist, Oliver Jeffers, comes this rare and enduring story about a parent's boundless love, life's endless opportunities and all we need to build a together future. Great for Ages 0-6. ISBN 9780008382209 -
It's late one night at the Spanish port of Algeciras and two fading Irish gangsters are waiting on the boat from Tangier. A lover has been lost, a daughter has gone missing, their world has come asunder - can it be put together again?Night Boat to Tangier is a novel drenched in sex and death and narcotics, in sudden violence and old magic. But above all, it is a book obsessed with the mysteries of love. A tragicomic masterwork from the award-winning Kevin Barry, Night Boat to Tangier is a work of melancholy beauty, wit and lyrical brilliance. ISBN 9781782116202 -
A glimpse into the process of one Ireland's best writers, handiwork is Baume's non-fiction debut, written with the keen eye for nature and beauty as well as the extraordinary versatilitySara Baume's fans have come to expect. PUBLISHED 26TH MARCH 2020. ISBN 9781916434257 -
They're a glamorous family, the Caseys. Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together - birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. And they're a happy family. Johnny's wife, Jessie - who has the most money - insists on it. Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much ... Everything stays under control until Ed's wife Cara, gets concussion and can't keep her thoughts to herself... ISBN 9781405918787 -
Dublin 1913. My name is Betty Rafferty. A few weeks ago I had to leave school and go out to work in a cake shop, serving fancy cakes to rude, rich people. No choice. But since then so much has happened. It all started when old Miss Warby took our pay away. And we walked out!The whole city - well, all us union members - are going out on strike. Even my dog Earnshaw has joined in!Life on the picket line in the lashing rain isn't much fun. Lots of people, like Peter Lawlor, just don't understand how unfair everything is. But we workers have to stand together - no matter what! ISBN 9781788491235 -
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is Seamas O'Reilly's memoir of growing up as one of eleven children in rural Northern Ireland in the 1990s after the death of their mother when Seamas was five. He delves into his family - his pleasingly eccentric, reticent but deeply loving father; his rambunctious siblings, intent on enforcing a byzantine age-based hierarchy; and the numerous bewildering friends, relations and neighbours who blew in and out to 'help'. Seamas describes how his mother's death changed his childhood relationships with everyone and everything, as knowledge of his tragic experience preceded him. He writes hilariously and tenderly of how his father, Joe, strove to give his children a happy home and a good education - building bookshelves in every room so as to avoid having to lecture them on the importance of academic achievement; videotaping and obsessively cataloguing more than 800 films so as not to have to take out a Blockbuster subscription; having the local nuns cook their Christmas turkey every year. This unusual childhood took place in Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles, on the Irish border that Brexit has made once more into a hotly contested political frontier. Seamas describes living on that boundary, including the time an IRA bomb blew out their windows when he was three. We then follow Seamas through his teenage years as a nascent political radical and amateur satirist, and his arrival in Dublin as a university student. Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is the story of a boy growing up; a family bonded by loss, love and mockery; and their triumphs and disasters as they reached for their goal of some kind of normality. ISBN 9780708899236 -
John Creedon has always been fascinated by place names, from when he was a young boy growing up in Cork City to travelling around Ireland making his popular television show. In this brilliant new book, he digs beneath the surface of familiar place names, peeling back the layers of meaning behind them to reveal stories about the nature of 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 Land of Robins', 'Patrick's Bed', 'The Eagles Nest', 'Hidden Treasure' and 'The Valley of the Crazy'. All hold clues to help uncover our past and make sense of that place we call home, feeding both mind and soul along the way. That Place We Call Home is an absorbing non-fiction debut from one of Ireland's broadcasting national treasures. ISBN 9780717192021 -
Join Trinity's Professor Luke O'Neill on the greatest journey of them all. From the very big to the very small - vast galaxies to microscopic atoms - travel through the wonders of the universe, the mysteries of the human body, and the tiny world of molecules. Discover the Irish scientists that have helped to shape our world and find out how to become one yourself. How do we measure the universe? Why do we need plants? How do our bodies repair themselves when we are ill? What species will exist on earth in a million years' time? Discover the answers to these questions and a lot more in this thrilling and engrossing large-format hardback book packed with fascinating phenomena, vibrant illustrations, experiments you can do yourself, and heaps of fun facts. ISBN 9780717185580 Great for Ages 7-12 -
Richard Nairn has spent a lifetime studying - and learning from - nature. When an opportunity arose for him to buy a small woodland filled with mature native trees beside a fast-flowing river, he set about understanding all its moods and seasons, discovering its wildlife secrets and learning how to manage it properly. Wildwoods is a fascinating account of his journey over a typical year. Along the way, he uncovers the ancient roles of trees in Irish life, he examines lost skills such as coppicing and he explores new uses of woodlands for forest schools, foraging and rewilding. Ultimately, Wildwoods inspires all of us to pay attention to what nature can teach us. 'A book to inspire anyone who wants Ireland to grow more Irish trees.' Michael Viney. ISBN 9780717190218 -
Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed and observant. A student in Dublin and an aspiring writer, at night she performs spoken word with her best friend Bobbi, who used to be her girlfriend. When they are interviewed and then befriended by Melissa, a well-known journalist who is married to Nick, an actor, they enter a world of beautiful houses, raucous dinner parties and holidays in Provence, beginning a complex menage-a-quatre. But when Frances and Nick get unexpectedly closer, the sharply witty and emotion-averse Frances is forced to honestly confront her own vulnerabilities for the first time. ISBN 9780571333134 -
"This is the book that I have given to all my friends, and some of them still haven't forgiven me for making them cry in public! This collection of essays is incredibly powerful, one that deals with tough and taboo topics in a way that is raw, honest, yet sensitive. A book that everyone needs to read."Rebekah ISBN 9780241986226 -
"I read this collection recently for an Ireland AM piece and was blown away by how good these stories are! Kevin Barry is wonderful at capturing the feel of small town Ireland. Clever, funny and thought-provoking I'm annoyed how long it took me to discover them!" Bob ISBN 9780955015298 -
New Selected Poems includes the key poems of Eavan Boland's career to date, from New Territory (1967) to Domestic Violence (2007), concluding with a selection of new poems. Developing her work through more than a dozen collections, Boland continues to find new dimensions in language, in history and in the body subject to passion and to time. Her critical writing, her poetry and her example have made an emancipating difference to writing in Ireland. As she remarked in an interview in 2000, 'women are now writing the Irish poem across a very big register of new tones, new subjects, new approaches...I think I was one of the poets who became convinced of the need for change.' A new collection from Eavan Boland, a pioneering figure in Irish poetry who has been credited with inspiring a generation. This will be her final collection, following her passing in April 2020. ISBN 9781784109141
