Irish Social

It's men like Jimmy Coonan and Mickey Featherstone who gave Hell's Kitchen its name. In the mid-1970s, these two longtime friends take the reins of New York's Irish mob, using brute force to give it hitherto unthinkable power. Jimmy, a charismatic sociopath, is the leader. Mickey, whose memories of Vietnam torture him daily, is his enforcer. Together they make brutality their trademark, butchering bodies or hurling them out the window.

Thomas Keneally, the Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler’s List, is universally praised for crafting smooth narratives from authentic historical events. With The Great Shame, he turns his insightful eye toward the Irish struggle through the 19h century. In sharp contrast to much of Europe, Ireland was a terrible place to be during the 1800s. Many of the nation’s finest people set sail for America and Canada.

This volume celebrates six such languages - Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, Sanskrit, Old Irish, and Biblical Hebrew - by first introducing listeners to their most distinctive features, then showing how these linguistic traits play out in short excerpts from actual ancient texts. It explores, for instance, how Homer's Greek shows signs of oral composition, how Horace achieves striking poetic effects through interlaced word order in his Latin, and how the poet of Beowulf attains remarkable intensity of expression through the resources of Old English.

Self Help was published in 1859 by Samuel Smiles. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism". Self Help sold 20,000 copies within one year of its publication. By the time of Smiles' death in 1904, it had sold over a quarter of a million. Self-Help elevated Smiles to celebrity status; almost overnight, he became a leading pundit and much-consulted guru.

Eamonn McCann’s account of what it is like to grow up a Catholic in a Northern Irish ghetto - first published in 1974 - quickly became a classic account of the feelings generated by British rule. The author was at the center of events in Derry which first brought Northern Ireland to world attention. He witnessed the gradual transformation of the civil rights movement from a mild campaign for “British Democracy” to an all-out military assault on the British state. This book describes the people involved in the war and gives an account of the springs of the "Catholic" opposition.

David McGowan takes us through the business, science, and the unexplained elements of death. Sharing stories that are poignant, humorous, and educational in turn, David explores the unique approach of Irish culture when it comes to grief and death and seeks to demystify the process of dying and what happens to the body afterward.

Sinn Féin is the most popular political party in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. A movement once synonymous with a paramilitary campaign is on the brink of taking real power through purely democratic means. But if Sinn Féin has mastered the art of electoral politics, it remains strangely opaque. Who really runs the party? How is it funded? And what can we expect of it as a party of government? Aoife Moore, Irish Journalist of the Year in 2021, explores these and other burning questions in The Long Game.

On the August bank holiday weekend in 1979, 14-year-old Timothy Knatchbull went out on a boat trip off the shore of Mullaghmore in County Sligo, Ireland. It was a trip that would cost four lives—and change his own forever. The IRA bomb that exploded in their boat killed Knatchbull's grandfather Lord Mountbatten, his grandmother Lady Brabourne, his twin brother Nicholas, and local teenager Paul Maxwell. In telling this story, Knatchbull is not only revisiting the terrible events he and his family lived through, but also writing an intensely personal account of human triumph over tragedy.

Tales of the Elders of Ireland (Acallam na Senórach) represents the largest literary text surviving from 12th-century Ireland, the most comprehensive early collection of Fenian stories and poetry. Three parallel worlds interact: the contemporary Christian world of Saint Patrick with his scribes, clerics, occasional angels, and souls rescued from Hell; the earlier pagan world of the ancient, giant Fenians and an array of Irish kings; and the timeless Otherworld, peopled by ever-young shape-shifting fairies.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the English poet William Blake consists of a series of texts written in the style of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own beliefs. Composed between 1790 and 1793, the book makes reference to Milton and Swedenborg, and adopts a device from Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost: a visit to hell. Blake expresses a deliberately depolarized and unified vision of the cosmos in which the material world and physical desire are both part of the divine order.

This book goes beyond just explaining the basics; it introduces key stock market concepts such as shares, dividends, and market trends in a way that captures the imagination of young listeners. The engaging narrative brings to life the characters and situations that make understanding the stock market an enjoyable and interactive experience. This gift is perfect for any child ages 8-12 who has expressed an interest in learning the basics of the stock market and investing.

Have you heard of Eithne the supernatural scholar or Fand the shape-shifting eco-warrior? What about Bé Mannair, a gender-fluid spy who challenges an entire army, or Bé Binn, a giantess who gets her own back on her bullies? From mermaids and fashionistas to athletes and farmers, meet goddesses of all shapes and sizes from Ireland’s ancient myths. Stand by their sides as they wield magic, fight monsters, and protect the powerless—and you might discover that you, too, are a force of nature.

Within this audiobook lies the heart of Irish identity—a rich heritage of storytelling that has been passed down through the generations, from the mysterious Druids and the formidable Tuatha Dé Danann to legendary heroes whose deeds are still sung. Meet the awe-inspiring gods and goddesses who wielded power over life and death and shaped the destiny of Ireland itself.

We think of fairies as little winged people with magic wands, but Irish fairies were flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials who towered over humans. We knew them as angels, demons, phantoms, mermaids, fairies, gods and not-gods, and the Gentry. Giant, chalk-white humanoids with piercing blue eyes, and flaming red or golden-yellow hair cascading in curls over their shoulders, that’s the true appearance of the ancient fairies of Ireland who came down from the cosmos thousands of years ago.

Reclaiming will cover a wide breadth of topics from the specific microaggressions Black women encounter on dating apps to navigating a career that may seem impossible. Every step of Yewande's writing affirms that maintaining your sense of self in a world that is not supportive of you is difficult, but not impossible. The audiobook will be a thought provoking, sensitive, challenging and deeply moving collection of essays covering everything from identity to love and career choices, published in May 2022.

Ró finds school impossible. She knows people think she's shy - and stupid. But when she goes to the bay each afternoon to watch the dolphin leap through the water, she finds the strength to keep going. Then the dolphin disappears, and everything starts falling apart. How much is Ró willing to risk to find him?

Are you an employer who’s worried about employment related claims from employees? Or an employee who’s not sure whether you have a reasonable chance of succeeding with a claim? Are you confused about what constitutes gross misconduct? Employment law in Ireland is a huge, complex subject. It’s made up of common law, statute, regulations, EU directives, custom and practice, etc. It’s perfectly understandable why you could not keep on top of it all. Especially if you are running a business, or working in a busy job. That’s why this audiobook will help.

Published in 1791, Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man defended the French Revolution’s values of freedom, equality, and brotherhood. He argued that a government based on justice ought to support mankind’s civil rights relating to security and protection, as well as the natural rights to life, liberty, and freedom of conscience. He also proposed plans for universal education, pensions, poverty relief, and social welfare in this classic work that was widely read across the West.

From That Small Island: The Story of the Irish is a global and ambitious retelling of Irish history that explores these questions to ask how Ireland has been shaped by the world and the world has been shaped by the Irish. From the island's earliest settlers more than 12,000 years ago to today and from Europe and North America to Asia, Africa, and South America, Bríona Nic Dhiarmada and Jane Ohlmeyer offer a new narrative of Irish history: open and integrated, situated within its broader global and environmental contexts, and peopled by the voices of those who have often been excluded from it.

On December 7th, 1955, Kitty McInerney lay dying in a New York hospital bed. The 47-year-old Irish immigrant, suffering from severe toxemia, was preparing for an emergency c-section to give birth to her 17th child. As a Catholic priest performed her last rites, Kitty succumbed to a rare moment of quiet reflection.