Here are 96 books that The Big Fellow fans have personally recommended if you like
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I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
I love this story because it is a time portal that swiftly deposited me in the streets of Dublin just before the Easter Rising. I could see the dirty streets and poverty and feel the hunger for change, for freedom from occupation, that was palpable in the air. I watched the unbelievable and fantastic display of doomed, deadly belligerence against the British.
I love the intensity and rawness of the author’s changing outlook. From a disinterested privileged medical student to a hard-core rebel, abandoning his bright future, he leads men across the wilds of Ireland in tasks he would rather not undertake. I love that he tells this with such a poetic turn of phrase that I can feel the grass underfoot as the men walk and my stomach churning as they take aim.
More than any other book of the period, On Another Man's Wound captures the feel of Ireland―the way people lived, their attitudes and beliefs―and paints brilliant cameo sketches of the great personalities of the Rising and the War. Like many of the Irish, O'Malley was largely indifferent to the attempts to establish an independent Ireland―until the Easter Rising of 1916. As the fight progressed his feelings changed and he joined the Irish Republican Army.
I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
I love the voice of authenticity that emanates from this story. The location is what was once considered one of the most remote, poor parts of Ireland, West Cork.
The author is a mere teenager at the time of the Rising. I love his deep regard for the men and women of his community, his understanding of the simple pleasures of their hard lives, his ability to communicate their stoic determination to fight the enemy in the face of possible disaster, particular cruelty, and severe punishment if they are caught.
I love how, without even trying, the author presents an explanation of how the rebel mindset permeated whole swathes of the country.
Where Mountainy Men have Sown gives a first-hand account of the fight for freedom in West Cork from 1916-21. It chronicles the social and military aspects of the War of Independence and describes the IRA's activities in the area, from Macroom to as far west as Ballingeary and Coolea, and covering Inchigeelagh to Ballyvourney and the Derrynasaggart Mountains. Micheal O Suilleabhain joined the armed struggle for freedom in his local area of Kilnamartyra at the age of thirteen and describes attacks on armed police patrols, barracks and a large-scale engagement against the elite of Britain's specially recruited fighting forces in…
I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
I love that this book is a treasure chest of ancient stories passed down by word of mouth for countless generations. The Irish were originally a separate nation of Celts, with their own set of gods and heroes and warriors, their own idiosyncratic characters like shape-shifters, fairies, and leprechauns. I love that Lady Gregory spent years collecting these stories from the locals on her native West Coast, starting with her own nanny.
What I love most about this book is that it was a best seller when the rebels of 1916 were young and that they were raised on some of these same stories of courage, fortitude and yes, trickery. These wild characters were the role models of young developing Irish rebels at the turn of the century.
Lady Augusta Gregory's Irish Myths and Legends, or Gods and Fighting Men as it was first titled in 1904, is an essential collection of Irish myths, legends and folk tales gathered by Gregory from Irish oral story tellers at the close of the nineteenth century.
These epic tales are divided into two parts: the first charts the coming of the mythic Tuatha De Danaan to Ireland, the lives of Manannan and Lugh, and the tragedy of the Children of Lir. The second part follows the exploits and trials of Finn Mac Cumhal, the Fianna, Oisin, and the love story of…
I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
I love this book because it is a compilation of first-person accounts of major events throughout the history of Ireland. From St. Patrick to the raids of the Vikings, the rebellions of former rebels, and all the way to the civil war of 1923-24. Each selection is from extant works located in libraries and institutions around the country.
We hear the wild stories told with awe and wonder, with shock and abhorrence, as if we are sitting in a pub listening to the author whisper his witness in astonishment or regret. Suddenly, we understand the Irish rebels, the generations of rebels through the centuries, and we find ourselves full of admiration for those men and women who endured and fought and finally found freedom for their countrymen.
The history of Ireland told through the words of the people who lived it
Eyewitness to Irish History draws upon original source materials to capture the tumultuous events and rich texture of Irish history like no other book. Comparing the readings compiled here to snapshots, the renowned Celtic scholar Peter Berresford Ellis offers what is, in essence, a family album of Ireland and the Irish people—beginning with Golamh, the legendary leader of the band of Iberian Celts who settled the island more than three thousand years ago, and concluding with gripping firsthand accounts by those on both sides of the…
Life is, and I think we all can agree, a wild mess of lessons, harshness, wonderful moments, and so much more—the coming-of-age genre has been so fun to explore for me because it touches on the many aspects of daily life. We all live different lives, and telling the stories of others, fictionally or non-fictionally is always something I have enjoyed. I am a journalist, author of coming-of-age fiction, and a lover of the stories life gives us. I hope you find within my recommended books, stories of growth, stories of dealing with life, and stories of the crazy yet beautiful gift that life is.
Through the Waters and the Wild really impacted me because it asks the timeless and relatable questions—“Where shall I go now?” and “What shall I do?” Focused on questions we all ask at some point in life, this wonderfully crafted novel answers that question in a unique way. Moving through the time period of the Irish Civil War, Fields is able to tell the story of a young boy finding his way all the while creating a setting in which is almost unbelievably described. I love this book because it seems as if Fields truly used a time machine, and as the reader, I felt as if I was on the streets in Ireland seeing the story take place.
"I was hungry, seeing myself starving for want of something I could not define. I sought it constantly, sought it at every turn, searched every face I met for hints of it, looked everywhere I could conceive. I lost time trying to slake this unquenchable thirst, trying to satisfy an endlessly burning hunger. But in the end I knew precisely what I had been after all along. It is the folly of the young, part of their particular curse, to be so unaware, to be blind as well as hungry. To be in exile from themselves and not know they…
I grew up in this place, born here when the Troubles began. In one form or another, the conflict was everywhere. It was built into the infrastructure, into attitudes. It infested conversations, hurt friendships, killed old folks, children, friends, and family. Fiction from and about Northern Ireland was inevitably hamstrung by that dominant, terrible story. Since the 1994 ceasefires, our fiction has come charging forward. It’s analytical, bullish, enlightening, funny as hell, and it moves us forward by taking honest stock of what came before. I love this emerging place and its new voices. And I love to read and write stories about it. It’s a stubborn home, often maddening, truly kind, forever breath-taking.
A masked IRA gunman presses a bullet into a small hand. He warns the boy he’ll put the same bullet into his father if instructions are disobeyed. It’s a pointed detail because it happened. The author was that boy. This story glides between fiction and nonfiction in search of truths about two rural murders and a vanished informer. But, as we have been learning here, dissecting darkness reveals only darkness. At heart this is a tale of a family’s composure, of a faithful bond to land, of being at odds with truths and lies. And that omnipresent terrain, with its moving shadows and thorny wilds, played witness to it all. This story takes place near where I grew up. It has stayed with me longer than I’m used to.
"The result is a breathtakingly brutal piece of crime writing that is relentless in its pursuit of the truth" Declan Burke in the Irish Times
"Among many other things, Murder Memoir Murder is a brilliant evocation of Ireland's border culture, its contentions and unwritten protocols" Garrett Carr, author of The Rule of the Land
"Hugely evocative, deeply felt and beautifully written, Murder Memoir Murder is a brave, brutal exploration of our shared past, his family’s own personal history and the act of storytelling itself." Brian McGilloway
Murder Memoir Murder is both a memoir and a crime fiction story involving a…
I’m an Irish writer and historian. I always enjoyed history, even in school, and I went on to study it at Maynooth University, receiving a BA. I became a history teacher and eventually head of the history department in Méanscoil Iognáid Rís. I began writing local history articles for the Dunlavin arts festival and the parish magazine. I went back to university and got a first-class honours MA from Maynooth, before being awarded a PhD from DCU. I’ve won the Lord Walter Fitzgerald prize and the Irish Chiefs’ Prize, and my students were winners in the Decade of Centenaries competition. Now retired, I continue to write and lecture about history!
I’ve always been interested in developments in Irish history during the under-studied seventeenth century. This was the period when many of the political, social, and economic foundations of modern Ireland emerged. The century began during the major upheaval of the Nine Years’ War and witnessed two more major conflicts—the 1641 Rebellion (which lasted until 1653) and the Williamite War of the 1690s. However, Gillespie’s book is unusual in that it focuses on the various efforts made to reach accommodations between natives and settlers, Catholics and Protestants, the Gaelic Irish, the Old English, and the New English, during the decades between these conflicts. All in all, a fascinating read which shows that things might have evolved differently had these efforts succeeded.
Well-established ideas of monarchy, social hierarchy and honour were under pressure in a fast-changing world. Political, religious, social and economic circumstances were all in flux. The common ambition of every faction was the creation of a usable focus of governance. Thus plantations, the constitutional experiments of Wentworth in the 1630s, the Confederation of the 1640s, the republican 1650s and the royalist reaction of the latter part of the century can be seen not simply as episodes in colonial domination but as part of an on-going attempt to find a modus vivendi within Ireland, often compromised by external influences.
In my poetry, stories, novels, and scripts, I have long been drawn to the workings of chance: how it can charm characters by the opportunities it appears to offer; how it can turn attractive prospects inside out; and how it can so often force characters to confront realities which, perhaps for a long time, they have sought to avoid. Through different genres—science fiction, mainstream literary, lyric poetry, and realistic drama—I have, over the years, explored the notion of the fork in the road. Will a character choose their path wisely? Will they choose foolishly but press on against all odds? In literature, in lfe, such questions are crucial.
Spanning the decades between the 1920s and 1980s, this is the story of the Quintons of Kilneagh, County Cork, Protestant mill-owners but supporters of the Irish independence cause; of the revenge taken on them by the Black and Tans; and of its life-skewing consequences for the survivors of Kilneagh. The Quintons’ son, Willie, is confronted with an almost indescribable fork in the road: should he avenge the family for the Black and Tans’ atrocities? Or should he search his heart for forgiveness? His decision takes an enormous toll on his character, with ramifications for his ability to be truly close to any other human being, including his lover Marianne.
Penguin Classics is proud to welcome William Trevor—"Ireland’s answer to Chekhov" (The Boston Globe) and "one of the best writers of our era" (The Washington Post)—to our distinguished list of literary masters. In this award-winning novel, an informer’s body is found on the estate of a wealthy Irish family shortly after the First World War, and an appalling cycle of revenge is set in motion. Led by a zealous sergeant, the Black and Tans set fire to the family home, and only young Willie and his mother escape alive. Fatherless, Willie grows into manhood while his alcoholic mother’s bitter resentment…
I have a passion for Historical Fiction. It started when I was 12 years old. Before that, I never liked any kind of history. Then, in school, we started learning about King Tut, and I was fascinated. I started having frequent dreams that he would sit and tell me stories about our life together and he believed that I was his wife, Sunni. Into adulthood, I still had these dreams, so I decided to write about the stories that he would tell. Along with exhaustive research, I learned who Sunni (Anukshanamun) was. My book is based on facts mixed with my dreams.
This is a great book that you cannot put down. It reminds me of my favorite series, Outlander. Going back through time is something that a lot of us dream about, but never experience. I love a good love story, but this book also has mystery, intrigue, and pulls at your heartstrings. I consider it Historical Fiction because even though we cannot travel through time, there were a lot of women that had the same feelings and trauma in the 1920s that the main character went through.
In an unforgettable love story, a woman's impossible journey through the ages could change everything...
Anne Gallagher grew up enchanted by her grandfather's stories of Ireland. Heartbroken at his death, she travels to his childhood home to spread his ashes. There, overcome with memories of the man she adored and consumed by a history she never knew, she is pulled into another time.
The Ireland of 1921, teetering on the edge of war, is a dangerous place in which to awaken. But there Anne finds herself, hurt, disoriented, and under the care of…
In Ireland, there’s barely a rock or a hedge that doesn’t have a story attached to it. Lots of them are dark, some are sexy and many are downright hilarious. I myself grew up near a river whose name in the Irish language means “eyeballs”. We lived a short but rocky drive from Gleann Nimhe, A.K.A., “Poisoned Glen”, and the origins of these names lie in tales that are even more twisted than you might expect. My very Catholic school relished enthralling its overcrowded classrooms with these pagan stories. We were introduced to gods and saints, famous slaughters, and tragic heroines. For some of us, it sank in. Deep.
Irish mythological tales are usually divided into various cycles. I’ve already included the heart of the aristocratic Ulster Cycle with The Táin above. Here, with The Pursuit, A.K.A., the Tóraíocht, we have my favourite part of the Fenian Cycle, with a Dark Ages hallucinatory road trip across the island as runaway lovers try to evade capture by a jilted king. Did I mention it was funny? I should have. It’s great.
For a thousand years and more audiences have delighted in these Irish tales, wondering at the elopement of the impetuous Grainne with the heroic Diarmuid and heartbroken by the fateful flight of Deirdre. Two strong women take control of their destinies and both pay grievous prices.
