The most recommended books about the Republic of Ireland

The book highlights the little known history of a female 16th century Irish chieftain who resisted English rule and fought her local enemies during a time when women were socially repressed. The colorful and turbulent history of Ireland during the Tudor expansion is examined within the context of O’Malley’s struggles and triumphs. Her audience with Queen Elizabeth I as an equal is a fascinating highlight of this excellent work of non-fiction.

I read this for professional reasons, which is not to say that I didn’t get great pleasure from it. Frame is a fine writer, and this isn’t always true of those who are also great scholars. This is a collection of essays, some new but mostly older works, lightly edited in a couple of cases.

Much of Frame’s work deals with that nebulous concept of identity in its various forms. He has explored much of the medieval history of Ireland after the English (or Anglo-Norman) invasion began in 1169. He has done so from perspectives both close and detailed and more broadly comparative. He was one of the most important figures in encouraging us to consider Ireland alongside and as part of a wider collective that includes Wales, Scotland, England, and parts of France.

For a time, I was rather annoyed because it seemed like every good idea I had… show more.

Flann O’Brien is famous for his ingenious novels, At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman, but I regard his funniest book as this short fictional memoir about life in the far West of Ireland. Originally published in Gaelic in 1941, it is a mock-pastoral farce about the customs of the remotest region in the country, where it rains all the time, but O’Brien is actually satirising the lack of mutual understanding between the local inhabitants and the modern outside world. The narrator’s adventures begin immediately after he is born and include (among many other absurdities) catastrophic pigs and the quest to climb a mountain to find an eternal fountain of whisky.

Edna O’Brien’s 2012 autobiography Country Girl is a blunt, gripping, lyrical and non-self-pitying depiction of her early life in the west of Ireland. It exposes the stultifying conformity imposed by the Catholic Church, family and community which I experienced myself. She rebelled as she sought freedom and self-expression from a domineering mother and drunken father. Edna’s escape to Dublin, London and New York as well as her exile from Ireland reflects an individual addicted to drugs and alcohol who seeks acknowledgement, liberty and success through many failed relationships. Edna’s autobiography resonates with many of my own experiences of the 1960’s. Country Girl demonstrates how one Irish female writer broke the cultural silence so that others would not feel alone. Her writing was an inspiration to me for my own memoir.

This book, for younger readers, is a collection of retellings of some of Ireland’s most well-known stories like Oisín in Tír na nÓg, as well as less famous ones like Son of an Otter, Son of a Wolf. Doyle writes terrifically well, perfectly pitching his tales at a young audience. Illustrated by Niamh Sharkey in her distinctive style, this is a collection to be treasured. I loved the pronunciation guide for the Irish names, as well as the introduction and the page about Doyle’s sources.

Townshend is a foremost British historian of his country’s rule in Ireland. He and the late Michael Hopkinson (whose books include Green Against Green about the Irish Civil War) are among British academics who have helped to educate the UK public on the impact of imperialism in Ireland.

Townshend astutely argues that the Catholic dimension of Irish republicanism has distinguished it from other forms.

I am gripped by this account of the real impact of Ireland’s short but very bitter civil war, which left the new state fractured long after the war ended in 1923.

Aiken is the great-granddaughter of a former “terrorist” who later became foreign minister of the Republic of Ireland. She mines fiction as well as historical records to produce a lively work relevant to any war.

This is a lovely and well-written young adult book of a girl who explores her sexuality and faces the many challenges of being a teenager in modern Ireland.

There are no holds barred in the telling of some of the incidents, and the protagonist Lauren ends up facing every teenage girl’s worst nightmare. Acceptance of difference is a strong theme through the novel and recent Irish referendums on Equal (Same Sex) marriage and legislation to legalise abortion in Ireland are seen from a young person’s valuable point of view.

I’m onto my second copy of this little book, as the first copy fell to bits from so much use. Though it’s a field guide, it’s not only easy to read and understand (even with my unscientific mind) but also full of useful little titbits of information.

Every spring, I can’t wait to take it off the bookshelf and use it to identify the enormous queen bumblebees emerging from hibernation in the garden. 

In contrast to earlier works on the Garda history, Conway frames policing experience in Ireland by examining its history and development in the context of post-colonialism, its impact, and lived experiences. As Ireland achieved independence, she shows, ‘time constraints and lack of alternative experience led to the retention of many core features of colonial policing’, resulting in an organisation ideologically different but practically similar to the Irish forces of the preceding century. In 1925, the new police of the Irish Free State absorbed the Dublin Metropolitan Police, the Civic Guards, who filled the niche left vacant by the disbanded Constabulary, and contentiously, many ex-RIC men. Conway skillfully weaves gardaí interviews into this varied contemporary history of policing the Republic of Ireland.