Showing results by narrator "Ciarán O’Brien" in All Categories

From the master of tragicomedy and award-winning author of Skippy Dies: a tour de force new novel about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is (maybe) ending. Irresistibly funny, wise and thought-provoking, a state-of-the-nation novel about one unhappy family in the midst of meltdown.

Jamie O'Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of many objects, books with dust jackets, cats, rivers and Edgar Allan Poe. At age 13 there are two things he especially wants in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind these things are intimately linked. And at his new school, where all else is disorientating and overwhelming, he finds two people who might just be able to help him.

In the aftermath of Ireland's financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds.

In Heart, Be at Peace, which can be listened to independently, Donal picks up the twenty-one voices from The Spinning Heart ten years on, in 2019. Small-town Ireland is a different place, the economy having recovered from the economic crash that served as a backdrop to the events in that book. Now the work is back, the dramas have all seemingly died down, the dark days of recession and struggle are over. But a new menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, old grudges are festering and new ones are rising, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered.

Pulsating with a unique sense of family and community in a place where hurling is a way of life, Joe Canning’s memoir reflects on the standards of excellence he sometimes felt chained to, the suffocation of trying to meet other people’s expectations and the personal battles that brought perspective to a singular focus on winning. Thoughtful and revealing, this is the remarkable story of one of Ireland’s greatest hurlers.

During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Shell Pine sees a ‘HELP NEEDED’ sign in a flower shop window. She’s just left her fiancé, lost her job, and moved home to her parents’ house. She has to make a change and bring some good into her life, so she goes inside and takes a chance. Shell realizes right away that flowers are just the good thing she's been looking for, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign asking for help. The thing is, Neve needs help more than Shell could possibly imagine.

In Who Killed Una Lynskey?, award-winning journalist Mick Clifford has built a compelling portrait of the case from interviews with the surviving main players, as well as exclusive access to the files of a private investigator who uncovered information the gardaí missed - or ignored. A timely, humane and compulsive listen, this is a groundbreaking account of the botched investigation and its devastating consequences for not just four devastated families, but also the reputation of the gardaí.

Final Draft, a psychological horror, being filmed at a house deep in a forest, miles from anywhere in the wintry wilds of West Cork. Former soap-star Adele Rafferty has stepped in to replace the original actress at the very last minute. She can’t help but hope that this opportunity will be her big break—and she knows she was lucky to get it, after what happened the last time she was on a set. Something isn’t quite right about Final Draft. When the strange goings-on in the script start to happen on set too, Adele begins to fear that the real horror lies off the page.

In the Irish countryside in 1988, a little boy – wild, vulnerable but loved – moves into a house with his magical mother and his older sister, B. Though they are homeless, his mother is making ends meet with her special gift for homeopathic cures and the little boy is on guard against the darkness at the edges of their lives.

In this fascinating new exploration of mental illness, Professor Brendan Kelly examines ‘madness’ in history and how we have responded to it over the centuries. We travel from the psychiatric institutions of modern India to scientific studies of the brain in Victorian England. We discover the beginnings of formal asylum care and witness the experimental therapies of the cavernous psychiatric hospitals of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Ireland, England, Belgium, Italy, Germany and the United States.

The ancient gods of Ireland were once worshipped throughout the land. Powerful and brave, they were unafraid to show their vulnerability, reject violence, or lean on others for support. Sadly, their stories – passed down by our ancestors – are all but forgotten. Gods Don’t Cry reawakens these gods, whose ancient tales redefine modern ideas of what it means to be a hero.

After years of moving from place to place, a young family finds shelter in an isolated house in the Irish countryside. Their father is missing, Mum is a healer and B a formidable big sister. In his strange new territory, a wild little boy gives voice to his experience. Jerry Drain, a local farmer, is stealing hay from the barn, someone is making nasty phone calls to the house at night and darkness is gathering at the edges of their lives. With his murderous imagination the boy will do everything in his power to protect his family. But Jerry will not go away.