Book picks similar to
The Life of Riley by Anthony Cronin
fiction
irish
ireland
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Molly
Teresa Crane - 1982
Fleeing her fanatical republican family, Molly O’Dowd arrives nearly penniless in London at the end of the nineteenth century. Plunged into the world of East End gambling houses and brothels, Molly invests what little money she has in a typing course, her only way out. This investment will lead her on the path to establishing herself as a woman of power and means.From the rough-and-tumble world of the London docks to the luxurious hotels and restaurants of the fashionable West End, Molly captures the temper of the times – the unrest of the labouring classes, the courage of the suffragette movement, the ravages of the First World War. Molly wins and loses in the tempestuous world of the capital but her energy and determination never flag and tides change when she meets a man who could match her in business… and in love. This rags-to-riches historical romance is perfect for fans of Lily Graham, Natalie Meg Evans and Fiona McIntosh.
Hostages
Oisín Fagan - 2016
My heart is broken and my failure is total.A bomb is born, lives and dies in a rural secondary school; Ireland becomes a dumping ground for corpses; one family’s genealogy begins in tragedy in 1574 and ends in something far worse in 2111; a strange tribal matriarchy on the banks of the River Boyne is threatened with extermination.Over the course of these stories, the world breaks down in an endless cycle of hunger, desperation, violence and domination, and we find a humanity left tender, collapsed, and full of a beautiful, primeval innocence.Fagan’s raw blend of verve, humour, imagination and warmth surges through these pages, revealing a world rendered both hopeful and disturbing, human and other, that is at once familiar and extraordinary.
The Country Funeral
John McGahern - 2019
'My only concern', John McGahern once said, 'is that I get the sentence right and describe my world clearly and deeply.''The Country Funeral' witnesses three brothers, John, Philly and Fonsie Ryan, as they travel west from Dublin to Gloria Bog - the heart of the territory where so many of McGahern's stories take place - to attend the funeral of their uncle. Depicting the customs and rituals of the day, McGahern exquisitely traces how the brothers react to the area in unexpected and tender ways, and face their own feelings about the transience of life.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.
In the Time of Famine
Michael Grant - 2011
The British government called the famine an act of God. The Irish called it genocide. By any name the famine caused the death of over one million men, women, and children by starvation and disease. Another two million were forced to flee the country. With the famine as a backdrop, this is a story about two families as different as coarse wool and fine silk. Michael Ranahan, the son of a tenant farmer, dreams of breaking his bondage to the land and going to America. The passage money has been saved. He’s made up his mind to go. And then—the blight strikes and Michael must put his dream on hold. The landlord, Lord Somerville, is a compassionate man who struggles to preserve a way of life without compromising his ideals. To add to his troubles, he has to deal with a recalcitrant daughter who chafes at being forced to live in a country of “bog runners.”In The Time Of Famine is a story of survival. It’s a story of duplicity. But most of all, it’s a story of love and sacrifice.
Exile
Pádraic Ó Conaire - 1910
Emerging from the hospital, he has lost an arm and a leg, and his face has been disfigured. He becomes a sideshow freak to support himself, traveling around England and even back to Galway, but he eventually returns to London, where he dies, down and out, in one of the city's parks.
Black Water
Cormac O'Keeffe - 2018
Streets that are ruled by Ghost and his crew. And now Ghost- inked, vicious, unprincipled- has a job for Jig.A job that no one can afford to go wrong- not the gangs, the police, the locals, and least of all not Jig.
Two Sisters In Ireland
Jeanne Selmer - 2014
But a chance meeting at Logan Airport introduces them to Aoife, an elderly Irish widow who is returning home to the joys and stresses of her tight-knit family. Encouraged by their conversation with Aoife, the sisters are determined to see more than the usual tourist attractions. By veering off the beaten paths, they find holy wells and unexpectedly encounter ghosts and fairies. They sing in pubs and have fun meeting interesting people. Their new experiences ignite passions both spiritually and physically. Through rich descriptions of Ireland’s beautiful scenery and the stories told by its people, this tale brings readers along on a colorful and engaging journey.
Make Yourself at Home
Ciara Geraghty - 2021
It’s the only place left to goWhen Marianne’s carefully constructed life and marriage fall apart, she is forced to return to Ancaire, the ramshackle seaside house perched high on a cliff by the Irish Sea. There she must rebuild her relationship with her mother, Rita, a flamboyant artist and recovering alcoholic who lives by her own rules.Marianne left home when she was fifteen following a traumatic and tragic incident. She never planned to return, and now she has to face the fact that some plans don’t work out the way you wanted them to. But she might just discover that, sometimes, you have to come to terms with the story of your past before you can work out the shape of the future…Set on the wild Irish coast, with an unforgettable cast of characters, this deeply emotional novel is full of Ciara Geraghty’s trademark heart and poignancy.
Highlander's Sacrifice
Alisa Adams - 2020
Would she do the same for him?
When Merith Mackenzie is saved from vagrants by a dashing hero, she wonders if she has stepped into the stories of old that she loved as a child. But reality is far different from tales.Finlay Dunne, her savior, would leave right then and there as he has no desire to play guardsman to the young lass and her lady companions. But with their guards dead, he has no choice but to escort them back to where they were going.Reaching the Mackenzie estate, Finlay realizes that Merith Mackenzie is of a noble family. His actions are praised, and he is tasked to be among of the guards that will take her to her betrothed, a job he never expected to take on. And what he had expected even less was to fall in love with the beautiful but spoiled lass.Things will only get worse when Merith finds herself in danger again, as Finlay has to decide how much more he is willing to sacrifice for a woman that can never be his.His worst fears will come true as being so close to a noble lady can be easily used against him by those who wish the powerful guard of Merith to get out of their way.The tables turn, and now Merith is the one that will have to give up everything to save Finlay from certain death.
Crazy For You
Emma Heatherington - 2007
She’s left her sleepy home town of Kilshannon and the heartache of lost love far behind her, determined not to look back… until her past comes looking for her that is!When disaster strikes and her holiday to sunny Spain is cancelled, the last thing Daisy expects is to open the door to her estranged best friend, Eddie, in desperate need of her help and with one hell of a crazy plan in mind!Heading back to her home turf to fulfill a dying woman’s final wish might be bad enough, but by the time she sets eyes on Jonathon Eastwood; tall, dark and as handsome as the day they parted, Daisy’s already in too deep to run. Plus, Jonathon’s not the only guy back in town, and with the devastatingly gorgeous Christian Devine back in her life, Daisy’s world is about to turn upside down.A laugh out loud Irish rom com about first love and friendship.
Wild About Harry
Colin Bateman - 2001
This is the story of Harry McKee – sleazy local chat show host. A once loving husband, he’s become a drunken unfaithful slob and even his kids won’t speak to him. His wife is divorcing him and taking him to the cleaners. On his last night as a married man he winds up drunk and is beaten up. When he keels over the next day at the divorce hearing his wife and solicitor assume he’s pulling a fast one. He eventually wakes from a week-long coma but he’s lost his memory – everything since 1974. Inside his sagging middle-aged body he feels eighteen. Though he doesn’t know it yet, Harry has been given the chance to get back his life, his wife and his self-respect. If only he could remember how it all went wrong and why his family hate him. As the pieces of his past slowly begin to fall into place we watch Harry attempt to persuade Ruth to fall in love with him all over again, and witness his failure to resurrect his career. Clinging on to the past, he at least still fits into his teenage tank-top and flares – but he’s only got two weeks until the next divorce hearing, when he will be homeless, childless and clueless!
Poems and Shorter Writings
James Joyce - 1937
It also includes a large body of his satiric or humorous occasional verse, much of which is fugitive and little known to the general reader. In addition, the volume provides the text of the surviving prose "Epiphanies, Giacomo Joyce" - the fascinating Trieste notebook that Joyce compiled while finishing "A Portrait of the Artist" and beginning "Ulysses", in which he first explored the world of his autobiographical novel.
Belfast Days: A 1972 Teenage Diary
Eimear O'Callaghan - 2014
It’s the bloodiest year of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’ and sixteen-year-old Eimear O’Callaghan, a Catholic schoolgirl in Andersonstown, West Belfast, bears witness in her new diary. What follows is a unique and touching perspective into the daily life of an ordinary teenager coming of age in extraordinary times. The immediacy of the diary entries are complemented with the author’s mature reflections written forty years later. The result is poignant, shocking, wryly funny and above all, explicitly honest.This unique publication comes at a time when Northern Ireland is desperately struggling to come to terms with the legacy of its turbulent past. It provides a powerful juxtaposition of the ordinary, everyday concerns of a sixteen-year-old girl – who could be any girl in any British or Irish city at this time, worrying about her hair, exams, clothes, discos – with the unimaginable horror of a society slowly disintegrating before her eyes, a seemingly inevitable descent into a bloody civil war, fuelled by sectarianism, hatred and fear.Written by an experienced broadcaster and journalist, Belfast Days demonstrates how one person’s examination of her own ‘story’, upon rediscovering her 1972 diary on the eve of the publication of the Saville Report, provided her with a new perspective on one of the darkest periods in twentieth century British and Irish history.
Ronan O'Gara: My Autobiography
Ronan O'Gara - 2008
He is a brilliant kicker both from the hand and at penalty goals, a sublime organizer of play from the out-half position, and a cool head in the pressure-cooker of club and international rugby. The list of the Cork man's achievements goes on and on: he is the leading points scorer in Irish rugby history, and one of the top ten in the world; the leading points scorer in the history of the Heineken Cup; and the first ever points and try scorer at the home of Gaelic sports, Croke Park. In his candid, illuminating autobiography, O'Gara tells the story of those many on-field successes, culminating in the glorious year of 2006 when his tactical prowess and will to win first helped guide Ireland to the Triple Crown in the Six Nations championship, then Munster to a memorable Heineken Cup victory over Biarritz at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. O'Gara kicked a perfect five out of five in the 23-19 win as Munster lifted the coveted trophy for the first time, sparking wild celebrations heard all the way back in Limerick and Cork. Yet as in any sporting career, there have been the setbacks as well, most notably Ireland's disappointing performance in the Rugby World Cup in France last year. O'Gara reveals what really went on in a divided dressing-room as a series of flat performances sent the Irish crashing out, while he personally had to deal with a series of front-page allegations about his private life. O’Gara has never been shy about the fact that he's fond of a drink and a bet, and he confronts his critics head on in this book. This is the unforgettable story of a rugby player at the top of his game, of a life lived to the full, and of a passionate and proud representative of the people of Cork and Ireland.