Audio book descriptionDermot Michael Coyne of Chicago goes to Ireland to uncover the true story of his grandparents, who left Ireland under a veil of mystery in the 1920s. There, Coyne meets Nuala Anne McGreal, a college student who helps him translate his grandmother's diaries. His grandparents, the O'Riadas, and the bloody history of Ireland from 1919 to 1923 are mysteriously linked to present-day peace talks between the Irish and English. The investigators learn the talks - and their own lives - hang in the balance unless they can uncover the secret of the O'Riadas and one of history's great mysteries - the murder of Michael Collins, the one man who could have ended the unrest.
Audio book descriptionIn the absorbing tradition of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Smith mixes humor in the face of adversity with moving insight as he tells what it was like to be young, Irish, Catholic, and poor. It is a tale in which the presence of Dennis's courageous mother, Mary, is never far off, and the mystery of what has happened to Dennis's father underlies all. As Dennis ages from seven to twenty-five, we see him learn life's indelible lessons. Street denizen, truant, and hard-living thrill seeker, Dennis Smith was, in many ways, a young man slated for failure. For his salvation, he could count only on his mother, who at a cost to her own dreams, sometimes hilariously, always lovingly, pulled him by the ear into adulthood; and his Irish-Catholic roots - which even in his darkest moments whispered to him of success, of the power of faith and family and the force of the written word.
Audio book descriptionIn the small Hampshire village of Sowerbridge, Irish labourer Patrick O'Riordan has been arrested for the brutal murder of elderly Lavinia Fanshaw and her live-in nurse, Dorothy Jenkins. As shock turns to fury, the village residents form a united front ag…
Audio book descriptionCovering the 80-plus years of the life of Minnie O'Brien, who is bound to take her place in literature alongside James Joyce's Molly Bloom, The Banyan Tree is a rich saga of rural Ireland in the 20th century. In distinctly layered prose that has be…
