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NEW TITLES
MERRION
PRESS
2021
New Title • IRISH INTEREST
OLD IRELAND IN COLOUR 2
JOHN BRESLIN & SARAH-ANNE BUCKLEY
In Old Ireland in Colour 2, the much-anticipated
sequel to their beloved bestseller, John Breslin and
Sarah-Anne Buckley have delved even deeper into
Ireland’s historical archives to uncover captivating
photographic gems to bring to life using their unique
blend of cutting-edge technology, historical re-
search and expert colourisation.
Old Ireland in Colour 2 celebrates more of the rich
history of Ireland and the Irish from all walks of life,
and sees all thirty-two counties represented. With
over 150 superb images, once again accompanied
by insightful captions, the book is the perfect encap- HARDBACK
sulation of life in Ireland throughout the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. SEPTEMBER 2021
€24.95 / £21.99
From the chaos of the revolutionary period to the 9781785374111
simple beauty of the islands, from the iconic to the
domestic, there is something new and inspiring to be
272 pages
gleaned from every single page.
230 x 190mm
John Breslin is a Professor at NUI Galway, where he has
taught engineering, computer science and entrepre-
neurship over a twenty-year period. He has written over
200 publications and co-authored two books.
Sarah-Anne Buckley is a lecturer in History at NUI Gal-
way and President of the Women’s History Association
of Ireland. She has published two monographs, four ed-
ited volumes and numerous articles. She is co-founder of
the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class, and
Senior Research Fellow in the UNESCO Child and Family MERRION
Research Centre. PRESS
New Title • CHILDREN’S
GIRLS PLAY TOO: BOOK 2
MORE INSPIRING STORIES OF IRISH SPORTSWOMEN
JACQUI HURLEY
Irish sportswomen continue to make headlines!
Whether it is Kellie Harrington’s dominance in the
boxing ring, or Rachael Blackmore’s phenomenal
success in the saddle in 2021, Irish women are
leading the way through their remarkable sporting
achievements.
With her popular fairy-tale touch, RTÉ’s Jacqui
Hurley tells the real-life stories of women who have
proved that gender is not a barrier to success.
Each new story in Girls Play Too: Book 2 is one of
empowerment and overcoming adversity, and the
role models celebrated here are sure to inspire the HARDBACK
next generation of Irish sportswomen even more.
SEPTEMBER 2021
Based on interviews with the featured athletes and €14.95 / £13.99
fully illustrated in colour, the second volume of Girls 9781785374081
Play Too continues from where the first book left
off, but with a new selection of inspiring Irish female
64 pages
athletes from the worlds of GAA, horse-racing,
238 x 170mm
athletics, hockey, and a host of figures who are
excelling in their chosen codes.
Jacqui Hurley is one of Ireland’s leading sports broad-
casters. She represented Ireland at basketball and also
played camogie for Cork. In 2009, she became the first
ever female anchor of Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio One.
2021 has been a particularly busy year for Jacqui, who –
in addition to Sunday Sport – has been a key presenter
in RTÉ’s coverage of EURO 2020, anchored the live cov-
erage of Ireland versus Japan in rugby, and hosted the
Tokyo Olympics coverage. She lives in Dublin with her MERRION
husband Shane and her children, Luke and Lily. PRESS
New Title • ART
DUBLIN
IN SKETCHES AND STORIES
RÓISÍN CURÉ
Róisín Curé sketches what she sees, wherever
she is, from the mundane to the magnificent and
everything in between. With her ears and eyes open,
she immerses herself in the urban scene and creates
a snippet of the world around her in words and
pictures with nothing more hi-tech than a fountain
pen and a small box of watercolours.
The bustling, busy city of Dublin is captured here in all
its grit and glory, through its buildings and people, as
well as conversations with its inhabitants. You won’t
find these stories in any guidebook, as they ebbed
and flowed like the ink and paint used to create this
HARDBACK
very intimate portrait of a city and its people.
With more than 125 lively images, Dublin in Sketches
OCTOBER 2021
and Stories is a joyous snapshot of the beating heart €24.95 / £22.99
of the Fair City. 9781785373763
176 pages
215 x 225mm
Róisín Curé has drawn all her life and is the author of two
books on urban sketching. This is her third. She currently
teaches the mindful and colourful practice of urban
sketching to students through workshops all over the
world and online; the latter is always live, in keeping with
the spirit of urban sketching, which is about living life in MERRION
the now. She is based in Co. Galway. PRESS
New Title • ART
DARK BEAUTY
HIDDEN DETAIL IN HARRY CLARKE’S
STAINED GLASS
LUCY COSTIGAN & MICHAEL CULLEN
Dark Beauty focuses on the minute detail in Harry
Clarke’s stained-glass windows, particularly in the
borders and lower panels of his work. Clarke’s bril-
liance as a graphic artist is clearly visible in his book
illustrations, which are imbued with precise attention
to intricate designs. He applied the same lavish fo-
cus to every facet of his stained glass.
The title Dark Beauty refers to the duality of Clarke’s
work that sees delicate angels juxtaposed with
macabre, grotesque figures, and references the
partially hidden details that dwell in the background NEW IN
of his windows – motifs, accessories, flora, fauna and PAPERBACK
diminutive characters – which may be missed in light
of the dominance of the central subjects. NOVEMBER 2021
€27.95 / £24.99
The authors spent many years photographing
9781785370755
Clarke’s windows in Ireland, England, America and
Australia, and the resulting 60,000 photos have been
256 pages
carefully whittled down to 325 glorious images. Dark
Beauty will provide lovers of Clarke’s stained glass
232 x192mm
with the opportunity to view previously obscured or
unnoticed details in all their unique beauty and in-
spire their own travels to view Clarke’s work.
Lucy Costigan is from Wexford. Strangest Genius: The
Stained Glass of Harry Clarke, by Lucy Costigan and Mi-
chael Cullen, was shortlisted for Best Irish-Published Book
of the year by the Irish Book Awards in 2010 and for Book
of the Decade by Dublin Book Festival in 2016.
Michael Cullen is a photographer and cinematographer
from Wexford. He photographed the entire stained-glass
work of Harry Clarke worldwide from 2008 to 2010 for MERRION
Strangest Genius. PRESS
New Title • ARCHITECTURE THE DIGNITY OF EVERYDAY LIFE CELEBRATING MICHAEL SCOTT’S BUSÁRAS EOIN Ó BROIN & MAL McCANN Michael Scott’s Áras Mhic Dhiarmada and Busáras is one of the most important modernist buildings in Ire- land. Built between 1947 and 1953, it was intended to be a bus station like no other, providing ordinary working people with a range of amenities including a roof-top restaurant, incredible panoramic views of Dublin, a crèche, and a 24-hour newsreel cinema. It was to be a microcosm of the city, providing dignity, comfort, and convenience to bus users. From its inception, the project was gripped in contro- versy, over the location, design, function, and cost. Battles were waged on the floor of the Dáil, in Dub- lin Corporation Committee meetings and the letters pages of various newspapers. Construction ground HARDBACK to a halt for three years as Government and opposi- tion argued over the merits and uses of the building. NOVEMBER 2021 In the end, it became home to the Department of €35 / £30 Social Protection and Bus Éireann’s provincial bus 9781785374180 services. Despite receiving widespread acclaim for its architectural and design innovations, today it is a 224 pages much maligned and misunderstood building. 245 x 210mm In this exciting collaboration, writer Eoin Ó Broin and photographer Mal McCann celebrate this incredible example of Irish modernist architecture and design. Eoin Ó Broin is TD for Dublin Mid-West and Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on Housing. He is the author of five books, including Home: Why Public Housing is the Answer (Merri- on Press, 2019) and Defects: Living with the Legacy of the Celtic Tiger (Merrion Press, 2021). Mal McCann is from Belfast and he has been working as a photographer since 1994. He joined The Irish News in 2007 and has won a number awards, including NI Press MERRION Photographer of the Year in 2018. PRESS
New Title • NATURE
LIFE IN IRELAND
A SHORT HISTORY OF A LONG TIME
CONOR W. O’BRIEN
This is the story of life in Ireland – a story half a billion
years in the making.
With its castles, crannogs and passage tombs,
Ireland is a land where history looms large. But the
saga of life on this island dates back millions of years
before the first people set foot here.
In Life in Ireland, Conor W. O’Brien guides you on
a safari through place and time, from the Jurassic
Coast of Antrim to the great Ice Age bone-beds
of Cork. Along the way, we’ll meet some of the
astonishing creatures that have called Ireland home
PAPERBACK
through the ages: shelled monsters; huge marine
lizards; armoured dinosaurs; giant deer; mighty
mammoths. Vital strands in the story of life on Earth
APRIL 2021
have left their mark here, including some of the first €16.95 / £15.99
creatures to crawl onto land or take to the wing. 9781785373848
This epic journey will take us from the first fossils to the 272 pages
present day. Through it all, we’ll see how our wildlife 215 x 135mm
has adapted to the human age and explore what
the future might hold for life in Ireland.
Conor W. O’Brien has been interested in wildlife and
nature from a very early age, and it is a passion that has
since taken him around the world. His first book, Ireland
through Birds: Journeys in Search of a Wild Nation (Merrion
Press, 2019), was shortlisted for Best-Irish Published Book at MERRION
the An Post Irish Book Awards. PRESSNew Title • CURRENT AFFAIRS
DEFECTS
LIVING WITH THE LEGACY OF THE CELTIC
TIGER
EOIN Ó BROIN
Across Ireland, thousands of people are living in
homes with serious fire-safety and structural de-
fects. Some have made the news, many have
not. Defects: Living with the Legacy of the Celtic
Tiger tells the horrifying story of how these peo-
ple came to be trapped in dangerous homes.
In this follow-up to his hugely popular Home, Eoin
Ó Broin reveals how decisions made by governments
from the 1960s to the 1990s led to an alarmingly light-
touch building control regime. When combined with
the greed of Celtic Tiger-era property development,
this allowed defective properties to be built and sold PAPERBACK
in huge numbers to unsuspecting victims.
AUGUST 2021
The results are clear. Families are living in fire-defective €16.95 / £14.99
and structurally unsound apartments and houses 9781785373961
across the state, and homes in Donegal, Mayo and
elsewhere are literally crumbling apart as a result
206 pages
of mica and pyrite in defective building blocks.
215 x 135mm
Who was responsible? Why did they get away with it?
And who will foot the bill to fix these potentially fatal
defects? These questions and more are answered in
this hard-hitting and shocking investigative work.
Eoin Ó Broin is a TD for Dublin Mid-West and Sinn Féin’s
spokesperson on Housing, Local Government and Heri-
tage. He is author of Matxinada, Basque Nationalism
and Radical Basque Youth Movements (2003), Sinn Féin
and the Politics of Left Republicanism (2009) and Home:
Why Public Housing is the Answer (Merrion Press, 2019).
He writes regularly on housing policy issues for a range of MERRION
newspapers and online publications. PRESSNew Title • MEMOIR
THE NATION HOLDS ITS
BREATH
GEORGE HAMILTON
‘David O’Leary is entrusted with the responsibility of
taking the penalty that could send Ireland to the
quarter-finals of the World Cup. This kick can decide
it all. The nation holds its breath … Yes, we’re there!’
Written with his trademark warmth and candour, The
Nation Holds Its Breath is George Hamilton’s eagerly
awaited and wonderfully told memoir of a rich and
varied career in broadcasting.
As the undisputed voice of Irish football, George’s
evocative and celebrated commentary is familiar
to millions. He first took up the microphone in the HARDBACK
mid-seventies and he has been enthralling his audi-
ences ever since, capturing the highs and lows of OCTOBER 2021
Irish sport for generations of fans. €22.95 / £19.99
9781785373732
To read George’s writing is to hear George’s
voice and the reader will be captivated from the 272 pages
very first page, as he takes us on an affectionate 234 x 156mm
journey from the Cregagh Road in East Belfast to an
emotional farewell salute from Big Jack Charlton on
the hallowed Anfield turf in 1995. The destinations
– Stuttgart, Genoa, New Jersey – will be familiar,
the journeys in between, anything but. A must-
read memoir from one of Ireland’s truly undeniable
national treasures.
George Hamilton has worked in broadcasting since the
seventies. Best known as the chief football commen-
tator for RTÉ, he also covers other high-profile sporting
events for the national broadcaster, including the Olym-
pic Games. Since 2003, he has presented The Hamilton MERRION
Scores, a weekly classical music show on Lyric FM. PRESSNew Title • MEMOIR
THATCHER’S SPY
MY LIFE AS AN MI5 AGENT INSIDE SINN FÉIN
WILLIE CARLIN
In March 1985, Willie Carlin mounted the steps
of Margaret Thatcher’s jet on the runway of RAF
Aldergrove, his life threatened by an IRA execution
squad.
So began the dramatic extraction of Thatcher’s
key undercover agent in Sinn Féin. For 11 years the
former British soldier worked alongside former IRA
commander Martin McGuinness in the republican
movement’s political wing in Derry. As MI5’s man
at McGuinness’s side, he gave the British state un-
precedented insight into the IRA leader’s strategic
thinking, and his reports on McGuinness, Adams and PAPERBACK
other republicans were read by the British Cabinet,
including Thatcher herself. AUGUST 2021
€12.95 / £9.99
When Carlin’s cover was blown in 1985, thanks to one 9781785374173
of his old MI5 handlers being jailed as a Soviet spy,
it was another British ‘super spy’ inside the IRA’s se- 240 pages
cretive counter-intelligence unit, the ‘nuttin’ squad’, 215 x 135mm
who saved Carlin’s life – Freddie Scappaticci.
In Thatcher’s Spy, the Cold War meets Northern Ire-
land’s Dirty War in the sensational memoir of a deep
undercover British intelligence agent, a man now
doomed forever to look over his shoulder …
Willie Carlin was born and raised in Derry. Joining the Brit-
ish Army in 1965, he was recruited by MI5 in 1974 (and lat-
er by the Force Research Unit) to infiltrate Sinn Féin. Over
the next eleven years, he became one of Britain’s most MERRION
valuable long-term agents in Northern Ireland. PRESSNew Title • BIOGRAPHY/
CURRENT AFFAIRS
QUINN
TREVOR BIRNEY
The Rise and Fall of the Border Billionaire
This is the dramatic story of Ireland’s most controversial
self-made billionaire, Sean Quinn. Award-winning
Irish journalist Trevor Birney skilfully weaves together
the inside story of Quinn’s meteoric rise and fall using
exclusive interviews with the man himself.
A millionaire by thirty, Quinn’s newfound wealth was
literally forged from the sand and stone under his
feet. In the 1980s he took on the monopolised Irish
cement business, and won. He became an almost
mythical character, creating thousands of jobs at a
time when the shadows of mass unemployment and PAPERBACK
the Troubles loomed large over the borderlands. At
the height of the Celtic Tiger, he gambled it all on
JANUARY 2022
the stock market; this time he lost.
€19.95 / £17.99
9781785373992
Quinn’s senior management team were hand-
picked, with loyalty prized above all else, but soon
the atmosphere in ‘Quinn country’ turned sinister. A 272 pages
campaign of violence and intimidation against his 234 x 156mm
former company culminated in the abduction and
brutal torture of one of that management team,
Kevin Lunney, in 2019.
Ten years after losing it all, Quinn is a brooding figure,
refusing to accept blame for his downfall. This book
is the truly remarkable story of the Irishman everyone
said was too big to fail.
Oscar-nominated producer, director and journalist
Trevor Birney has won a Justice Media Award, two RTS
awards and was named NI Broadcaster of the Year in
2002. In 2017, with Barry McCaffrey, he produced the
ground-breaking documentary No Stone Unturned,
about the 1994 murder by UVF gunmen of six Catholics in MERRION
Loughinisland, County Down. PRESSNew Title • BIOGRAPHY
ALBERT REYNOLDS
RISKTAKER FOR PEACE
CONOR LENIHAN
In Albert Reynolds: Risktaker for Peace, Conor
Lenihan takes the reader on a journey through the
former Taoiseach’s fascinating life. From his early
days in Roscommon, Reynolds’ determination and
hard work saw him rise from a humble clerical job
with Irish Rail to become one of Ireland’s best-known
showbusiness promoters. But it is as creator of the
template for peace on the island of Ireland that he,
deservedly, will be best remembered.
Reynolds’ extraordinary progress from the cut-throat
world of business to local politics, and, ultimately,
government ministries, was driven by the entrepre-
neurial spirit and impatience that became the hall- HARDBACK
mark of his successes and his failures. Appointed as
Taoiseach in 1992, by 1994 he had been drummed
SEPTEMBER 2021
out of office, yet in that brief period he confounded
€22.95 / £19.99
his critics by fast-tracking an end to the violence of
9781785374050
the Troubles, with the IRA and Loyalist ceasefires in
1994.
256 pages
In the first complete biography of Reynolds, former 234 x 156mm
Minister of State Conor Lenihan delivers an insider’s
account that reveals the courageous personal risks
Reynolds took to create the template for peace in
Ireland, and the highs and lows of a tempestuous,
risk-taking life.
During his career as a journalist and a fourteen-year stint
in politics, Conor Lenihan worked and became friends
with Albert Reynolds, who co-opted him, behind the
scenes, to help with the peace process. A member of
one of Ireland’s best-known political families, Lenihan’s
first book, the bestselling Haughey: Prince of Power, was MERRION
published in 2015. PRESSNew Title • BIOGRAPHY
ERNIE O’MALLEY
A LIFE
HARRY F. MARTIN & CORMAC K.H. O’MALLEY
This is the compelling life story of Ernie O’Malley
(1897–1957), one of Ireland’s most complex and
influential republican figures, and later an acclaimed
writer. Born in Castlebar in 1897, O’Malley became
devoted to Ireland’s fight for freedom at an early
age. As a twenty-three-year-old IRA commandant-
general, leading 7,000 volunteers in the brutal War
of Independence, and later IRA senior commander
during the Civil War, he was captured three times,
severely tortured, escaped twice, wounded fourteen
times and survived a forty-one-day hunger strike.
What distinguishes O’Malley’s story as remarkable
PAPERBACK
is the stark difference between his dramatic life as
a soldier and his subsequent role as an intellectual
and renaissance man. After the establishment of the OCTOBER 2021
new state, he left Ireland and travelled throughout €18.95 / £16.99
Europe, America and Mexico, mixing with the likes 9781785373909
of Jack B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett and John Ford, and
embarked upon a tumultuous marriage to American 272 pages
heiress-sculptor Helen Hooker. 226 x 153mm
Enriched with valuable unpublished material from
his diaries, letters and military dispatches, and
the unique perspective of his son Cormac, Ernie
O’Malley: A Life is the fascinating biography of an
extraordinary Irishman.
Harry F. Martin was born in Massachusetts and following
his education at Harvard and time in the US Army, he be-
gan his esteemed career encompassing law and finance.
Cormac O’Malley was born in Ireland, moved to the USA
in 1957, and worked in law. In retirement, he has pursued
research on Irish history and the legacy of his parents, MERRION
Ernie O’Malley and Helen Hooker O’Malley. PRESSNew Title • BIOGRAPHY
PSYCHIATRIST IN THE CHAIR
THE OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY OF ANTHONY CLARE
BRENDAN KELLY & MUIRIS HOUSTON
‘The remarkable story of a remarkable man …
A fascinating book.’ Gyles Brandreth
‘Marvellous’ Joanna Lumley
‘This book explores his life in the same depth that
Clare himself would have expected as one of our
greatest broadcasters.’ Irish Independent
‘The insight that this biography provides into this key
figure makes for essential reading.’ Irish Examiner
Born in Dublin in 1942, Anthony Clare was the best-
known psychiatrist of his generation. His BBC Radio
4 show, In the Psychiatrist’s Chair, which ran from
1982 to 2001, brought him international fame and NEW IN
changed the nature of broadcast interviews forever. PAPERBACK
Famous interviewees included Stephen Fry, Anthony
Hopkins, Spike Milligan, Maya Angelou and Jimmy AUGUST 2021
Savile, each of whom yielded to Clare’s inimitable €16.95 / £14.99
gentle yet probing style.
9781785373329
Clare made unique contributions to the
demystification and practice of psychiatry, most 328 pages
notably through his classic book Psychiatry in 234 x 156mm
Dissent: Controversial Issues in Thought and Practice
(1976). This book, the first official biography of this
much-loved figure, examines the man behind these
achievements: the debater and the doctor, the
writer and the broadcaster, the public figure and
the family man.
Brendan Kelly is Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College.
His books include Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry
in Ireland (IAP, 2016) and Coping with Coronavirus
(Merrion Press, 2020).
Muiris Houston is a medical writer and health strategist,
a specialist in occupational medicine, and Adjunct Pro-
fessor of Narrative Medicine at Trinity College. He is a col- MERRION
umnist with the Medical Independent and The Irish Times. PRESSNew Title • MEMOIR
A CITY IMAGINED
BELFAST SOULSCAPES
GERALD DAWE
‘The greatest influence on a writer is the past, and
its relevance is pervasive in what follows and is the
source on which this short book is based. Often it is
only when that past is unearthed that a poet begins
to make sense of his or her imaginings.’
A City Imagined is a paean to the city of Belfast
and its writers. Written in his highly regarded wry and
lyrical style, Dawe’s memoir sketches the outlines of
his life as he starts to understand the city in which
he was born, before embracing some of the local
writers whose early work had such an influential
part in nudging him in the direction of writing – HARDBACK
poets, in the main, whose first books were read with
the enthusiasm of a young man beguiled by the JULY 2021
language and music of poetry. €16.95 / £14.99
9781785373930
Building on the critical acclaim of In Another World:
Van Morrison & Belfast and Looking Through You this 112 pages
third and final volume of the Northern Chronicles 205 x 130mm
trilogy completes a fascinating and rich portrait of
the celebrated poet’s tangled and ever-evolving
relationship with his native city.
Gerald Dawe is a former Professor of English and Fellow
Emeritus, Trinity College Dublin. He has published ten col-
lections of poetry and several volumes of essays, includ-
ing The Wrong Country: Essays on Modern Irish Writing,
The Sound of the Shuttle: Essays on Cultural Belonging &
Protestantism in Northern Ireland, In Another World: Van
Morrison & Belfast, and Looking Through You: Northern MERRION
Chronicles. PRESSNew Title • MEMOIR
BELFAST AURORA
A MEMOIR OF A FALLS CHILDHOOD, 1971–1973
SEAMUS KELTERS
‘Soon the summer storms became mainly man-
made, rumbling and crackling their way up from
the terraces and rolling in from the sprawling new
estates. Troubles had come again to Belfast, this city
of history, hard men and hatred.’
This is a story of the most brutal years of Belfast’s re-
cent history, told from the perspective of a young
boy who loved to write. In Belfast Aurora Seamus
Kelters poignantly reflects upon his years growing up
on the Falls Road at the height of the Troubles, where
he witnessed the Ballymurphy massacre, the fallout
of Bloody Sunday and soldiers in the playground.
HARDBACK
However, this is not just a Troubles book. It’s a testi-
OCTOBER 2021
mony to the love of family and friends in the midst of
€16.95 / £14.99
chaos and tragedy. Within these fifteen stories there
are lessons, laughter and all of life in the unique 9781785374142
place he called home. It offers not just the tapestry
of a life touched by war, but also the brilliant colours 170 pages
of a child’s world bursting like a bright waving flare in 205 x 130mm
his very own Belfast aurora.
Acclaimed Belfast journalist Seamus Kelters began his
career at The Irish News. In the 1990s, he joined the BBC
as a broadcast journalist, before moving behind the
camera, becoming Assistant Editor of BBC Newsline. He is
best known as one of the authors of the landmark book
Lost Lives (1999), which documented every death that
was caused by the Troubles. He died in 2017, at the age MERRION
of fifty-four. PRESSNew Title • POLITICS
POLITICAL PURGATORY
THE BATTLE TO SAVE STORMONT AND THE
PLAY FOR A NEW IRELAND
BRIAN ROWAN
This is a book about political stasis; the purgatory that
Stormont became, and the sins of that long stand-
off. The story begins in January 2017, with Martin
McGuinness’s dramatic resignation as Deputy
First Minister, and chronicles all the behind-the-
scenes negotiations that ultimately resulted in the
restoration of the Executive in January 2020, with the
‘New Decade, New Approach’ agreement. Then,
that new fight with a fearsome and unknowable
foe: coronavirus.
Political Purgatory charts the three years from the
collapse and then the restoration of the northern Ex-
ecutive to Covid-19 in the wider frame of building PAPERBACK
peace after conflict. It also turns the next corner into
the centenary of Northern Ireland and that louder APRIL 2021
call for Irish unity since Brexit, like a piece of heavy €19.95 / £17.99
machinery on fragile ground, has left cracks across 9781785373817
the Union.
254 pages
Spanning several decades, some of the biggest 234 x 156mm
names on the inside of Irish and British politics, in-
cluding Gerry Adams, Naomi Long, Peter Robinson,
Julian Smith and Simon Coveney, help veteran jour-
nalist Brian Rowan turn the pages in what President
Clinton has called the ‘long war for peace’.
Brian Rowan is a journalist, author and broadcaster. He
was the BBC security editor until 2005, and reported on
the major developments in the transition from conflict to
peace. He was a category winner in the Northern Ireland
Journalist of the Year awards four times, including twice MERRION
as specialist journalist. PRESSNew Title • HISTORY AGENTS OF INFLUENCE BRITAIN’S SECRET INTELLIGENCE WAR AGAINST THE IRA AARON EDWARDS Recruited by British Intelligence to infiltrate the IRA and Sinn Féin during the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles, they were ‘agents of influence’. With code names like INFLICTION, STAKEKNIFE, 3007 and CAROL, these spies played a pivotal role in the fight against Irish republicanism. Now, for the first time, some of them have emerged from the shadows to tell their compelling stories. Agents of Influence takes you behind the scenes of the secret intelligence war which helped bring the IRA’s armed struggle to an end. Historian Aaron Edwards explains how the IRA was penetrated by British agents, with explosive new revelations about PAPERBACK the hidden agendas of prominent republicans like Martin McGuinness and Freddie Scappaticci, and APRIL 2021 lesser-known ones like Joe Haughey and John Joe €19.95 / £17.99 Magee. Bringing to light recently declassified TOP 9781785373411 SECRET documents and the first-hand testimonies of agents and their handlers, Edwards reveals how British 320 pages Intelligence gained extraordinary access to the IRA’s 226 x 153mm inner circle and manipulated them into engaging with the peace process. With new insights into the spymasters behind the scenes and Britain’s international intelligence net- work, Agents of Influence offers a rare and shocking glimpse into the clandestine world of secret agents, British Intelligence strategy, and the betrayal at the heart of militant Irish republicanism during the vicious decades of the Troubles. Aaron Edwards is a Senior Lecturer in Defence and Inter- national Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is the author of several books, including Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law: Aden and the End of Empire (2014) and UVF: MERRION Behind the Mask (Merrion Press, 2017). PRESS
New Title • HISTORY
THE TREATY
THE GRIPPING STORY OF THE NEGOTIATIONS
THAT BROUGHT ABOUT IRISH INDEPENDENCE
AND LED TO THE CIVIL WAR
GRETCHEN FRIEMANN
On the morning of 11 October 1921, the world’s me-
dia watched as the most wanted man in Ireland
bounded through the door of 10 Downing Street.
Moments later, the ‘head of the murder gang’
grasped the hands of the British Prime Minister.
Such was the extraordinary melodrama of the
events leading up to what is known in Ireland as
simply ‘the Treaty’ – a document that had been
designed to bring one violent conflict to an end
and soon gave rise to another. A century on from PAPERBACK
its signing, Gretchen Friemann has produced a
gripping and definitive account of the tense and
NOVEMBER 2021
protracted negotiations between the Irish and Brit-
€16.95 / £14.99
ish delegations, shining a fresh light on the complex
9781785374203
politics and high-stakes bargaining that produced
the agreement.
300 pages
The Treaty is a stunningly vivid piece of narrative 234 x 156 mm
history that resonates across the intervening century
to the age of Brexit. It is a must-read for anyone
who wishes to understand modern Ireland and the
enduring complexities of British–Irish relations.
Gretchen Friemann is an award-winning journalist whose
work has featured in The Irish Times, Irish Independent,
Sunday Business Post, The Sunday Times and The Austra- MERRION
lian. She lives in Dublin and The Treaty is her first book. PRESSNew Title • HISTORY
BALLYMACANDY
THE STORY OF A KERRY AMBUSH
OWEN O’SHEA
On 1 June 1921, at the height of Ireland’s War of In-
dependence, a cycling unit of members of the RIC
and Black and Tans was ambushed by the IRA at
Ballymacandy, between Milltown and Castlemaine
in County Kerry. During an hour of fighting, five po-
licemen were killed, among them a father of nine
who lived in the same village as many of the men
who attacked him.
The dramatic story is told from the perspectives of
the IRA gunmen, the local Cumann na mBan, the
terrified villagers, the priest who prayed into the ears
of the dying, the IRA’s informer within the police, and PAPERBACK
the doctor accused of neglecting a dying man.
MAY 2021
This book comes on the centenary of an ambush €14.95 / £12.99
that continues to resonate in its community and in
9781785373879
a county in which the battle with Crown forces was
more virulent and violent than most. Drawing on
230 pages
newly published witness statements and previously
215 x 135mm
unpublished official records, Ballymacandy details
what happened to the five men who died and to
those who led the attack against them, and sets
the incident against the backdrop of the wider
revolutionary struggle in the county.
Owen O’Shea is Communications Officer with Kerry
County Council. A former Labour Party press officer
and election candidate, he is the author of Heirs to the
Kingdom: Kerry’s Political Dynasties (2011) and A Century
of Politics in the Kingdom: A County Kerry Compendium MERRION
(Merrion Press, 2018). PRESSNew Title • HISTORY
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
THE STORY OF IRISH IMMIGRATION TO THE U.S. AND
HOW AMERICA’S DOOR WAS CLOSED TO THE IRISH
RAY O’HANLON
Unintended Consequences reveals how America’s
door closed on legal Irish immigration in the 1960s,
and how America’s Irish mounted a counterattack
when nation-changing political forces were sweep-
ing the country during the era of civil rights, political
assassinations, and the Vietnam War.
This book looks at the full historical background to Irish
migration across the Atlantic, how it helped shape
the young republic, and how the Immigration and
Nationality Act of 1965 brought a near total halt to
this westward flow. Nevertheless, the Irish would not
be denied and continued to make the journey, no
longer into the light of a full and legal American life,
PAPERBACK
but rather into the shadows of an undocumented
existence. Successive organisations championed
the undocumented Irish, and the fight continues to APRIL 2021
this day, but this is a new America, where, in recent €19.95 / £18.99
years, there has been growing hostility to immigrants 9781785373787
of every nationality.
368 pages
Ray O’Hanlon has spent over three decades report- 226 x 153mm
ing on battles over comprehensive US immigration
reform, and Unintended Consequences is the story
of the Irish past, present and most uncertain future in
the ‘land of the free,’ now in the presidency of Joe
Biden, a man who fully embraces his Irish immigrant
family story. Through Biden, the great Irish of Ameri-
ca story continues, and with renewed hope.
Ray O’Hanlon is the editor of New York’s Irish Echo
newspaper. A native of Dublin, he is a frequent contributor
to US, Irish and British media outlets reporting on Ireland,
Irish American affairs, and Anglo-Irish relations. His book
The New Irish Americans (1998) was the recipient of a MERRION
Washington Irving Book Award. PRESSNew Title • HISTORY
FROM WHENCE I CAME
THE KENNEDY LEGACY, IRELAND AND AMERICA
EDITED BY BRIAN MURPHY & DONNACHA
Ó BEACHÁIN
Elected in 1960 as the 35th President of the USA, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy remains to this day the office’s
youngest incumbent and he was its first Roman
Catholic. His term in office was short, but arguably
no US President has inspired more people around
the globe than JFK. Even today, for generations
born decades after his death, President Kennedy’s
legacy has an enduring appeal.
This insightful book contains specially commissioned
pieces by a range of respected academic and po-
litical figures, including former Obama speechwriter
Cody Kennan, the President of the Robert F. Kenne- PAPERBACK
dy Human Rights organisation, Kerry Kennedy, and
former senior adviser to Bernie Sanders Tad Devine. MARCH 2021
€19.95 / £18.99
With the presidency of Joe Biden seeing a renewed 9781788551410
focus on broader themes within Irish, American and
global politics, From Whence I Came is a fascinating 288 pages
and timely collection that offers a fresh perspective 226 x 153mm
on the Kennedy legacy and the politics of Ireland
and the United States.
Brian Murphy lectures at the Technological University
Dublin. He is the author of Forgotten Patriot: Douglas
Hyde and the Foundation of the Irish Presidency and
Brian Lenihan: In Calm and Crisis. He was Co-Director of
the Kennedy Summer School from 2016–2018.
Donnacha Ó Beacháin is Professor of Politics at Dublin City
University. His books include Destiny of the Soldiers: Fianna
Fáil, Irish Republicanism and the IRA 1926–1973 (2010),
Political Communication in Ireland (2014), and From
Partition to Brexit: The Irish Government and Northern MERRION
Ireland (2018). PRESSNew Title • HISTORY
BIRTH OF A STATE
THE ANGLO-IRISH TREATY
MÍCHEÁL Ó FATHARTAIGH & LIAM WEEKS
The Irish state came into being as a result of the
Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. Signed by a Sinn Féin
delegation and the British government at 10 Downing
Street in the early hours of 6 December that year, the
Treaty was the culmination of both a revolutionary
movement that had begun in the previous decade,
and of centuries of separate nationalist attempts to
gain autonomy from the United Kingdom.
Although it is the founding document of the Irish state,
the Treaty has been the subject of very little critical
analysis, certainly in proportion to its significance. In
its centenary year, this book examines the Treaty’s PAPERBACK
legacy and its implications for the state that it
created. It explores three key elements of the Treaty: NOVEMBER 2021
the contemporary circumstances that produced €19.95 / £17.99
it; its significance from a comparative and an 9781788551595
international perspective; and its historical and
political consequences. 272 pages
234 x 156mm
Birth of a State is unique in that it is written by ac-
ademics from two different disciplines – history and
political science – who each bring their own per-
spectives on the Treaty and its impact, both then
and now.
Mícheál Ó Fathartaigh is a lecturer and historian based in
the Social Sciences Research Centre, National University
of Ireland, Galway, and Dublin Business School. This is his
fourth book.
Liam Weeks is a lecturer and political scientist in the De-
partment of Government and Politics, University College
Cork. This is his fifth book.New Title • POLITICS
RECONCILING IRELAND
FIFTY YEARS OF BRITISH–IRISH AGREEMENTS
EDITED BY RICHARD HUMPHREYS
‘This book is an indispensable guide to half a century
of agreements between Ireland and Britain and the
parties of Northern Ireland.’
Tony Blair
Reconciling Ireland is a unique guide to the history of
the last half-century, compiling all the texts of the key
British–Irish legal and political agreements relating to
Northern Ireland for the first time.
These forty documents, presented alongside expert
analysis by author and Irish High Court Judge
Richard Humphreys, chart the evolution of the
principles of the political and peace processes, from HARDBACK
their inception right up to the present day, from the
Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, to the 1985 Anglo- MAY 2021
Irish Agreement, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement €35 / £29.99
and the New Decade, New Approach deal of 2020 9781788551571
that resolved the 2017–20 Stormont stalemate.
This definitive collection demonstrates the tremen-
475 pages
dous progress made towards peace and func- 234 x 156mm
tioning politics, despite huge obstacles, and gives
grounds for optimism for the future. Given the need
to renew British–Irish relationships following Brexit, as
well as the outstanding question of implementation
of existing agreements, and the increased debate
on Northern Ireland’s constitutional arrangements,
Reconciling Ireland will be an invaluable reference
work for generations to come.
Richard Humphreys is a Judge of the Irish High Court. He
is a graduate of UCD and the King’s Inns, and holds a
PhD in Law from Trinity College Dublin. As a government
adviser in 1996, he attended the launch of All-Party
negotiations in Stormont that ultimately led to the Good
Friday Agreement. This is his fourth book.New Title • MYTHOLOGY
EARTHING THE MYTHS
THE MYTHS, LEGENDS AND EARLY HISTORY
OF IRELAND
DARAGH SMYTH
In Ireland, the link between place and myth is
strong, and there is no more enlightening way to
understand the rich tapestry of Irish mythology, and
its relationship to our true history, than by reading
the landscape. Earthing the Myths is an engaging
and exhaustive county-by-county guide to the vast
number of fascinating places in Ireland connected
to myth, folklore and early history.
Covering the period 800 BC to AD 650, this book
spans the Late Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the
early Christian period. It explores the ways in which NEW IN
the land evolved, and with it our catalogue of PAPERBACK
myths and legends. Smyth chronicles sites the length
and breadth of the country, where druids, fairies, NOVEMBER 2021
goddesses, warriors and kings all left their mark, in €24.95 / £22.99
tales both real and imagined. 9781788551397
With over one thousand locations recorded, from 392 pages
Rathlin Island to the Beara Peninsula, Earthing the
245 x 180mm
Myths breathes life into places throughout Ireland
that find their origins in our pre-Christian and pre-
Gaelic past, and shows that they still possess unique
wisdom and vibrant energy.
Daragh Smyth is a retired lecturer from the Dublin Institute
of Technology and co-founder of Saor Ollscoil na hÉire-
ann (The Free University of Ireland). He was in charge of
the Erasmus programme at D.I.T., where he taught Irish
Cultural studies to students from Europe, Australia and
North America. Smyth has published two books with Irish
Academic Press: A Guide to Irish Mythology (1996) and
Cú Chulainn: An Iron Age Hero (2005).New Title • ART VICEREINES OF IRELAND PORTRAITS OF FORGOTTEN WOMEN EDITED BY MYLES CAMPBELL This book tells the untold story of the women who were the faces of the British administration in Ireland. As the wives of the country’s viceroys, the vicerein- es were once the fashionable figureheads of social, cultural and charitable life at Dublin Castle, in the days before Irish independence. Exploring the por- traits, papers and personal objects they left behind, this book sets out to recapture their lost legacies. Fabrics shimmer, flowers blossom and pearls glint in the painted world of the vicereines. But behind these genteel images were activists and advocates who, as the studies in this book reveal, touched almost every facet of Irish life. Campaigns to develop hos- pitals, relieve poverty, promote Irish fashions, and, HARDBACK remarkably, mitigate what several perceived as the injustices of British rule in Ireland, are just some of their MAY 2021 overlooked initiatives. The experiences and papers €45 / £40 of the vicereines have much to tell us, not only about 9781788551335 official Ireland but also about those whose identities are largely lost to history, such as orphans, artisans 320 pages and the working poor. Often sympathetic but some- 245 x 210mm times apathetic, the contrasting attitudes of the vicereines suggest a fresh, more inclusive reading of the British administration in Ireland, as viewed not only through its men but also its women. Featuring essays by leading scholars and based on original sources, this beautifully illustrated book brings together text and image to create new and illuminating portraits of forgotten women. Myles Campbell is Research and Interpretation Officer for the Office of Public Works at Dublin Castle. In 2017 he was co-editor of Making Majesty: The Throne Room at Dublin Castle, A Cultural History (Irish Academic Press), research for which earned him the inaugural George B. Clarke Prize.
New Title • ART
GAZETTEER OF IRISH
STAINED GLASS
REVISED NEW EDITION
NICOLA GORDON BOWE, DAVID CARON
(ED.), MICHAEL WYNNE
‘This book will now become the definitive study on
Irish stained glass and has rightly set the standard for
future research on the subject.’
Irish Arts Review
Some thirty years since its first publication, David
Caron returns with an updated, redesigned, and
greatly expanded edition of the Gazetteer of Irish
Stained Glass, the definitive guide to Irish stained
glass from 1900 to the present day.
HARDBACK
This is a practical and comprehensive guide that
lists all of Ireland’s significant stained glass works JULY 2021
county by county, as well as the most noteworthy €35 / £29.99
pieces abroad by Irish artists. Beautifully illustrated 9781788551298
with vibrant new photography, the Gazetteer is
bursting with colour and brimming with information 320 pages
about our most famous stained glass artists, those 225 x 170mm
who deserve to be better known, and the best con-
temporary artists working in the medium today.
With over 2,500 entries, two essays, and biographical
notes on major artists, this is the key reference book
for both academics and all who wish to learn more
about Ireland’s celebrated stained glass and where
it can be found.
David Caron studied Visual Communication at NCAD,
Dublin, to which he returned as lecturer and later as
Head of Department. He undertook a Masters at the
Pratt Institute, New York, and his PhD at Trinity College
Dublin. Since availing of early retirement, he has focused
on cataloguing Ireland’s stained-glass heritage.BESTSELLERS MERRION PRESS
HB: 9781785373701 • €24.95/£22.99 PB: 9781785372698 • €18.95/£16.99 HB: 9781785373374 • €14.95/£13.99
304pp • Fully illustrated 380pp • 38 illustrations 64pp • Fully illustrated
PB: 9781785370854 • €14.95/£13.99 PB: 9781785370878 • €19.99/£17.99 PB: 9781785373107• €16.95/£14.99
200pp 420pp • 24 illustrations 256pp
HB: 9781785371387 • €17.99/£15.99 PB: 9781785373459 • €18.95/£17.99 PB: 9781785372612 • €19.95/£17.99
232pp • 12 illustrations 300pp • 26 illustrations 304ppBESTSELLERS IRISH ACADEMIC PRESS
HB: 9780716532767 • €45.00/£39.99 HB: 9781911024958 • €15.95/£14.99 PB: 9781788550451 • €34.95/£32.99
512pp • Fully illustrated 228pp • 36 illustrations 372pp • Fully illustrated
PB: 9780716531937 • €39.95/£34.99 HB: 9780716533146 • €70/£60 PB: 9781785371608 • €16.99/£14.99
384pp • Fully illustrated 592pp • Fully illustrated HB: 9781785371592 • €65/£60 • 277pp
HB: 9781788550574 • €24.95/£25 PB: 9781911024491 • €24.99/£22.99 PB: 9781788551533 • €24.99/£22.99
294pp • 20 illustrations 304pp • 22 illustrations 288ppIRISH ACADEMIC PRESS • MERRION PRESS
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