Irish Politics & Current Affairs

by Shane Kenny

€21.99

From late 1994 to June 1997 Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left were a coalition government led by John Bruton, arguably the most left-wing government in the history of the state. Shane Kenny provides the reader with the ultimate fly-on-the-wall insider account of this crucial period in Irish politics: one which contained highly significant breakthroughs in the Northern Ireland peace process, the most high-profile murder in the history of the state (Veronica Guerin), the establishment of the 'payments to politicians' tribunal which finally exposed the sources of former Taoiseach Charles Haughey's wealth, and a divorce referendum which heralded a changing Ireland. This is also a story of tragedy, both political and human; of those who died and were injured needlessly by the resumption of IRA violence; of a government with good potential which fell; of timing which was wrong, and of an economic disaster that could have been averted, or at least substantially mitigated.

by Justine McCarthy

€12.99

'Jolts like jump-leads to the complacent heart ... an eye-opener. MIRIAM LORD FOR FOUR DECADES, JUSTINE MCCARTHY'S FEARLESS JOURNALISM AND COMMENTARY HAS HELD POWER TO ACCOUNT AS SHE, IN HER OWN WORDS, 'GREW UP ALONGSIDE MY COUNTRY'. The book opens with a long personal essay in which Justine recounts her early years as a fearful child who dreamed of being a writer, to cutting her teeth in the male-dominated newsrooms of the 1980s, where she faced down sexism and broke gender barriers in a determined career marked by excellence. From Mary Robinson making history as Ireland's first female president to a present-day RTÉ in crisis, over thirty years of stories are collected here. In her long career, Justine broke child sexual abuse scandals and reported from the frontline of the Northern Ireland Troubles; she documented political turmoil and charted the role of Ireland on the world stage. She followed the times the country let down its people, through its ailing health system, its legal system, the domination of the church, and its treatment of women. An Eye on Ireland maps a transformative era in Irish life towards a more progressive and just society, and one woman's extraordinary career at the forefront of change.

by John Sweetman

€15.99

A PAGE-TURNING DETECTIVE MEMOIR WHICH REVEALS THE FORENSIC METHODSTHAT HELPED SOLVE PROMINENT IRISH CRIMES. When a violent incident led young misfit garda John Sweetman into the Garda Technical Bureau with incriminating evidence, he found his true calling. He spent the next 25 years as a detective garda working on the frontline of crime scene investigations - as both a fingerprint expert and, in later years, a forensic handwriting and document expert. His tenacity and natural eye for detail led him to becoming involved in many criminal investigations and high-profile cases. From the brutal murder of Marie Dillon in Finglas in 1998 to the gangland killing of Raymond Salinger in 2003, John was involved in the search for forensic evidence at these and other crime scenes. He later employed his handwriting expertise in examining fraudulence, threatening letters and counterfeit documents, as well as the investigations into the murders of Jasmine McGonagle and student Jastine Valdez and the horrific Hawe familicide in Cavan in 2016. Identity is both a fascinating insight into specialist forensic fields, which peeks behind the curtain of how crimes are solved, and a bravely told story of a nonconformist detective in a remarkable career. 'I am determined this case is not going to be forgotten. This man is dangerous and has to be found.' FROM THE PROLOGUE

by Mark O'Connell

€10.99

In 1982 Malcolm Macarthur, the wealthy heir to a small estate, found himself suddenly without money. The solution, he decided, was to rob a bank. To do this, he would need a gun and a car. In the process of procuring them, he killed two people, and the circumstances of his eventual arrest in the apartment of Ireland's Attorney General nearly brought down the government. The case remains one of the most shocking in Ireland's history. Mark O'Connell has long been haunted by the story of this brutal double murder. But in recent years this haunting has become mutual. When O'Connell sets out to unravel the mysteries still surrounding these horrific and inexplicable crimes, he tracks down Macarthur himself, now an elderly man living out his days in Dublin and reluctant to talk. As the two men circle one another, O'Connell is pushed into a confrontation with his own narrative: what does it mean to write about a murderer?

by Harry McGee

€12.99

'An incredible and compelling story' MATT COOPER 'Gripping, unpretentious, brilliant and unputdownable' BUSINESS POST A Murderer. A Leader. The Scandal of an Era. In the summer of 1982, Irish aristocrat Malcolm Macarthur embarked on a brutal killing spree in a doomed plan to remedy his financial woes. Two weeks later, in a sensational turn of events, he was arrested in the home of Attorney General Patrick Connolly. The scandal attracted worldwide headlines and resulted in untold damage to then Taoiseach Charles Haughey. The words he used to describe the dark events - grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented - coined the era-defining phrase GUBU. Here, award-winning political journalist Harry McGee retraces the happenings of that long hot summer and beyond. From the cat-and-mouse game to track down an unpredictable killer to Macarthur's extraordinary capture, he considers both the life and psyche of a murderer, and that of the leading political figure of the time - a man similarly driven by greed, status and a sense of himself as existing above the law. Including previously unknown aspects of the trial and interaction with Malcolm Macarthur himself, The Murderer and the Taoiseach is a compulsive journey through tragedy and scandal. 'Brisk, illuminating, crackling with detail' TONY CONNELLY 'A brilliant account of shocking crimes and the dramatic political crisis they caused' DAVID McCULLAGH

by Malachi O'Doherty

€15.08

'Deeply researched and often revelatory... variegated and sensitive' Literary Review It is twenty-five years since the Good Friday Agreement brought an end to the terrible violence that rocked Northern Ireland for decades. Yet, in this controversial and provocative new book, Malachi O'Doherty argues that it completely ignored the real reason behind the conflict and instead left a festering wound at the core of society. Part memoir, part history and part polemic, How to Fix Northern Ireland shows how the country's deep division is simply not about whether it should be governed as part of Ireland or as part of Britain - as presumed by the agreement - but rather is fundamentally sectarian, an inter-ethnic stress comparable to racism. O'Doherty reveals how the split between catholics and protestants continues to invade everyday life - from education and segregated housing, from street protests, bonfires and parades to the high politics of power sharing and Brexit - and asks what can be done to solve a centuries-old social rift and heal the relationship at the heart of the problem.

by Fintan O'Toole

€13.99

The #1 Irish Times bestseller WINNER of the An Post Irish Book Awards 'A clear-eyed, myth-dispelling masterpiece' Marian Keyes 'Sweeping, authoritative and profoundly intelligent' Colm Tóibìn, Guardian 'With the pace and twists of an enthralling novel' Irish Times 'Evocative, moving, funny and furious' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'An enthralling, panoramic book' Patrick Radden Keefe 'A book that will remain important for a very long time' An Post Irish Book Award We Don't Know Ourselves is a very personal vision of recent Irish history from the year of O'Toole's birth, 1958, down to the present. Ireland has changed almost out of recognition during those decades, and Fintan O'Toole's life coincides with that arc of transformation. The book is a brilliant interweaving of memories (though this is emphatically not a memoir) and engrossing social and historical narrative. This was the era of Eamon de Valera, Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and John Charles McQuaid, of sectarian civil war in the North and the Pope's triumphant visit in 1979, but also of those who began to speak out against the ruling consensus - feminists, advocates for the rights of children, gay men and women coming out of the shadows. We Don't Know Ourselves is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand modern Ireland.

by John Crawley

€15.26

April 1975. A young Irish-American from New York is on a mission to enlist in an elite unit of the US Marine Corps. His goal: to receive the most intensive military training possible, and then move to Ireland to join the IRA and fight to end British occupation. In this powerful and brutally honest memoir, John Crawley details the gruelling challenges of his Marine Corp boot camp; after moving to Dublin to join the IRA Crawley, now known with the movement as ‘The Yank’, is sent to Boston to work with notorious American mobster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger to amass an illegal shipment of weapons. Ordered to return to Ireland with the arms, Crawley is then captured on the Marita Ann gun running trawler off the Kerry coast, imprisoned, and upon release became one of the masterminds behind an operation to knock out London's electrical system. Crawley is blisteringly candid about those he worked with, including fascinating portrayals of IRA leader Martin McGuinness, and of the psychopathic Whitey Bulger. Crawley is unflinching in his commentary on IRA leadership and their tactics, and through it all comes the steadfast voice of a man on a mission, providing an evocative and passionate account where that mission led him and why. To this day, he remains committed to the establishment of all-Ireland Republic

by Frank Connolly

€18.99

One hundred years after the Anglo-Irish Treaty and partition, after 30 years of Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement and Brexit, the debate on Irish unity has intensified. But what could a united Ireland look like, and what would it mean for those both north and south of the border? In this meticulously researched book, Frank Connolly interviews people from all sides, and presents his conclusions as to how and whether a united Ireland could create a viable, vibrant new country. United Nation is a timely look at the possibility of an integrated and united Ireland.

by Glenn Patterson

€23.80

A view of the south of Ireland - political, social, geographical - through the eyes of a liberal northern protestant being asked to rejoin it. 'A pleasure to read... Incisively mixing memoir, reportage and analysis' Daily Mail 'Discursive, humane and meticulously attentive to verbal nuances that can spell a world of meaning' Irish Examiner 'Patterson's travels provide humorous asides, telling insights and sobering pessimism' Irish Independent The reunification of Ireland, which in 1998 seemed to have been pushed over the far horizon as an aspiration, has returned with a vengeance. Brexit calls into question the British commitment to Northern Ireland and threatens its economy. There has been a surge in support for Sinn Féin in the South, a party pushing relentlessly for a poll on the future of the border. If Sinn Féin enters the government of the Republic, as seems inevitable in the coming years, this issue will move even higher up the agenda, with who knows what consequences north of the border. In The Last Irish Question, Glenn Patterson travels the country, looking at this place he is being asked to join and which a significant number of people in the North have spent a very long time shunning. Most of the South is terra incognita to them (as it is to many people who live in Dublin). There have been countless books describing and travelling through Ulster, but never one that turns its gaze the other way. Brilliantly witty and alarmingly topical, this is a social, political and geographical view of the South of Ireland, as well as a journey of discovery for a quizzical Northerner being asked to rejoin it.

by Kevin Meagher

€11.59

For over two centuries, the ‘Irish question’ has dogged UK politics. Though the Good Friday Agreement carved a fragile peace from the bloodshed of the Troubles, the Brexit process has shown a largely uncomprehending British audience just how uneasy that peace always was – and thrown new light on Northern Ireland’s uncertain constitutional status. Remote from the British mainland in its politics, economy and cultural attitudes, Northern Ireland is, in effect, in an antechamber, its place within the UK conditional on the border poll guaranteed by the peace process. As shifting demographic trends erode the once-dominant Protestant–Unionist majority, making a future referendum a racing certainty, the reunification of Ireland becomes a question not of if but when – and how. In this new, fully updated edition of A United Ireland, Kevin Meagher argues that a reasoned, pragmatic discussion about Britain’s relationship with its nearest neighbour is now long overdue, and questions that have remained unasked (and perhaps unthought) must now be answered.

by Derek Scally

€11.59

The Number One Bestseller Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2021 'A great achievement . . . Brilliant, engaging and essential' Colm Tóibìn 'At once intimate and epic, this is a landmark book' Fintan O'Toole When Dubliner Derek Scally goes to Christmas Eve Mass on a visit home from Berlin, he finds more memories than congregants in the church where he was once an altar boy. Not for the first time, the collapse of the Catholic Church in Ireland brings to mind the fall of another powerful ideology - East German communism. While Germans are engaging earnestly with their past, Scally sees nothing comparable going on in his native land. So he embarks on a quest to unravel the tight hold the Church had on the Irish. He travels the length and breadth of Ireland and across Europe, going to Masses, novenas, shrines and seminaries, talking to those who have abandoned the Church and those who have held on, to survivors and campaigners, to writers, historians, psychologists and many more. And he has probing and revealing encounters with Vatican officials, priests and religious along the way. The Best Catholics in the World is the remarkable result of his three-year journey. With wit, wisdom and compassion Scally gives voice and definition to the murky and difficult questions that face a society coming to terms with its troubling past. It is both a lively personal odyssey and a resonant and gripping work of reporting that is a major contribution to the story of Ireland. 'Reflective, textured, insightful and original ... rich with history, interrogation and emotional intelligence' Diarmaid Ferriter, Irish Times 'An unblinking look at the collapse of the Church and Catholic deference in Ireland. Excellent and timely' John Banville, The Sunday Times 'Engaging and incisive' Caelainn Hogan, author of Republic of Shame 'Remarkable ... Essential reading for anyone concerned about history and forgetting' Michael Harding 'Fair-minded ... thoughtful' Melanie McDonagh, The Times 'Very pacey and entertaining ... and it changed how I regard Ireland and our history for good. Fantastic' Oliver Callan 'Original, thought-provoking and very engaging' Marie Collins 'A provocative insight into a time that many would rather forget' John Boyne 'Challenging' Mary McAleese 'Explores this subject in a way that I've never seen before' Hugh Linehan, Irish Times

by Aoife Barry

€13.99

A David and Goliath story about Ireland’s role as prime real estate for the world’s largest tech multinationals, and the considerable impact it has had on us as individuals. Since the arrival of Google to Dublin’s docklands in 2003, Ireland has experienced a ‘tech sprawl’, with some of the world’s largest social media multinationals like Facebook and Twitter following suit –all taking full advantage of Ireland’s attractive corporate tax rate. Their presence has changed the landscape of Ireland significantly, both physically and economically: pressed up against the sleek, gargantuan offices of these tech firms are some of Dublin’s oldest communities, inhabited by the dedicated users of the products these companies are touting. But the promises of opportunity and enterprise initially posited by Ireland’s policy-makers have exposed infrastructure and legislation woefully underprepared to keep up with the rate of expansion of the tech giants. With over 75% of the population using social media sites, and an increase in online harassment, trolling and misinformation campaigns, how do we live offline if they live next door? In The Tech Dilemma, investigative journalist Aoife Barry does a deep-dive into the butterfly effect the presence of these tech companies has had on the nation and exposes the real-life consequences it has had on us as individuals.

by Lila Haines

€28.00

From the nationalist, unionist and Labour traditions of pre-partition Ireland to the parties that have contested elections in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, 'The Political Parties of Ireland' is the first book to feature all Irish political parties. In addition to charting the successes and setbacks of the major parties, which are featured in the order in which they were founded, Lila Haines also reflects on how smaller parties have influenced the direction of political trave