From childhood in Knocklong Limerick to a death in WW2 Berlin aged 42 via the Irish War of Independence and the Spanish Civil War, Frank Ryan led a fascinating and often controversial life. We're probably due a more up to date book on him, but Sean Cronin's 1981 work remains the standard biography.

Austere design on this first Faber paperback edition of Richard Murphy's High Island. The mix of uppercase and lowercase works. #irishpoetry

We are delighted to share the cover for a very special project we've been working on for Christmas 2025! An Alternative Irish Christmas is an anthology of stories, in traditional, unusual, extract, and essay form by some of our favourite authors. 1/🧵

Some independent Irish bookshops you can support rather than Amazon. And most offer free postage in 🇮🇪too.
@kennysbookshop.bsky.social @chaptersbookstore.bsky.social
@booksupstairs.bsky.social
winding-stair-bookshop.myshopify.com
www.marrowbone.ie/shop
@gutterbookshop.bsky.social
#Spéirghorm

😀 BOOM!

At the very least I'd have expected Gavin to be a decent motivational speaker ( in the style of a football manager talking up his team at half time) But not *even* that. Crash and burn.

A hardcover first - and sole - edition, 1973 - of Art ó Maolfabhail's history of the origins of hurling - Camán -2000 Years of hurling in Ireland. An uncommon title (as the saying goes, a book "rarely found in good condition" #gaabooks #speirgorm

'This book is a fascinating account of the events in 2015/16 which lit a feminist bomb under Irish theatre ...'

Our thanks to Katy Hayes and @independent.ie for this thorough review of WTF Happened.

📰 Read in print nationwide or online: www.independent.ie/entertainmen...

📸 @katyhayze.bsky.social

Great feature article in today's @irishindosport.bsky.social Weekend supplement on the book also. Photos by Ruth Medjber.

Marinka, Donetsk region, destroyed by Russian occupiers.

"And I'm we're" ? Not too sure what I was at there.

Newly published this week (and I'm we're now at peak release time for books) #speirgorm #irishbooks

Author Donal Fallon signing copies of our preorders of The Dublin Pub , A Social and Cultural history, from @newislandbooks.bsky.social all preorders have now shipped ! thebookshop.ie/donal-fallon... #TheDublinPub

The year's turned.

There goes the last of the sunshine for the year

The uncommon A Great Sacrifice - the detailed history of County Cork soldiers in WW1. A very handsome edition as well as being a great work of scholarship.

Tá an mana 'Guth na nDaoine' níos snasta ná an leagan Béarla - ''Raising Your Voice''.

When our daily news is dominated by truly awful people like Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu, it's easy to forget that there are still some truly decent, honourable people in the world. Here's a reminder of one of them: Finbarr Archer. 👏👏👏
#Speirgorm
www.rte.ie/news/regiona...

Golf hooligans. It's like something you'd make up when you're joking about a country going completely feral.

thebookshop.ie/cormac-moore... is the link. #bigweekend #dublinfestivalofhistory

Really excited to share this front cover draft of my latest book (co-written with Alan Tate) due out in November on Lemon's Pure Sweets. Lemon's used to have a slogan, "You cannot eat a better sweet". This Christmas you cannot get a more beautiful book, full of wonderful images.

I suspect books are rather low (or indeed completely off) his radar, from what I've seen so far...😊

Demented stuff, random policymaking on the hoof. No way to run an economy, never mind anything else.

From the President who brought you ‘we’ll do it with two years’ notice to give people time to move manufacturing’, and ‘we’ll sign a treaty with the EU stipulating that its 15% tariff includes pharmaceuticals’, comes ‘actually yeah we’ll double your price unless you turn the sod over here in a week’