Showing results by narrator "Aidan Kelly" in All Categories

Fintan O'Toole was born in 1958. His life covers Ireland's journey out of underdevelopment and domination by the Church, to the country's transformation into the relatively prosperous and tolerant society that it is today. But, along the way, there was a sectarian civil war in the North, which cast a dark shadow over the whole island, and bitter struggles for intellectual, civil and sexual freedoms. This is a very personal history by a writer who is considered by many to be the country's leading public intellectual.

Renowned academic Dr Sparling seeks help with his project on a remote Irish village. Historical researchers Ben and Chloe are thrilled to be chosen—until they arrive. The village is isolated and forgotten. There is no record of its history, its stories. There is no friendliness from the locals, only wary looks and whispers. The villagers lock down their homes at sundown. A nameless fear stalks the streets. Nobody will talk—nobody except one little girl. Her story strikes dread into the hearts of the newcomers. Three times you see him. Each night he comes closer.

Filled with roller coaster emotions and explosive revelations of covert operations, Charlie One provides a unique, detailed and unbiased account of the secret war fought in Northern Ireland. Seán Hartnett grew up in Cork in the 1970s where he observed the worst of the northern Troubles. Despite his family’s republican ties and his own attempt to join the IRA, Hartnett shocked family and friends when he joined the British Armed Forces.

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him—and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church. The long-awaited new work from the author of Foster, Small Things Like These is an unforgettable story of hope, quiet heroism and tenderness.

Socialite Lucinda Oliver planned a lavish celebration for her fortieth birthday - a weekend escape at an Irish coastal town with her sister Stella and her closest friends. The weekend was to end with a blow-out party and a special announcement, one Lucinda had been dropping hints about for weeks. But before Lucinda could reveal her secret, she went missing. And now, six months later, her car has been found submerged in the Atlantic Ocean.

After an audacious assassination attempt on boss Daniel Kinahan's life, the Kinahan Cartel recruited an unprecedented number of killers to retaliate against their attackers, the Hutch gang. Kinahan Assassins is the compelling behind-the-scenes account of one man's thirst for vengeance and how it proved fatal for his organization. Kinahan Assassins has the stories of the men who killed for the cartel - including vulnerable drug addicts, a former British soldier, an MMA fighter and an invisible 'Mr Nobody' who acted as a cartel quartermaster - as well as those who gave them orders.

Micheál Burns lives alone in his family's bungalow at the end of Kerry Head in Ireland. It is a picturesque place, but the cliffs have a darker side to them: for generations they have been a suicide black spot. Micheál's mother saw the saving of these lost souls—these visitors—as her spiritual duty, and now, in the wreckage of his life, Micheál finds himself continuing her work. When his sisters tell him that they want to sell the land, he must choose between his siblings and the visitors, a future or a past.

Ireland, 1011 AD. The mortal kingdoms rise up against High King Brian Boru as they seek to wrest his crown from him. Yet the real struggle is between the two magical races of Ireland, the Fomorians and the Descendants, eternal enemies who both now seek dominion over the mortal world. Gormflaith, queen of King Brian, remains unmasked as the powerful Fomorian she is. Gormflaith plans to establish control over Ireland and destroy the Descendants in one fell swoop... but she cannot do it alone.

Having signed up for the US Army in the 1850s, aged barely 17, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, go on to fight in the Indian wars and ultimately the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, despite the horrors they both see and are complicit in, they find these days to be vivid. Both an intensely poignant story of two men and the lives they are dealt and a fresh look at some of the most fateful years in America's past.

Caught smuggling half a million euros’ worth of cocaine, Paul Keany was sexually assaulted by Venezuelan anti-drugs officers before being sentenced to eight years in the notorious Los Teques prison outside Caracas. There he was plunged into a nightmarish world of coke-fuelled killings, gun battles, stabbings, extortion and forced hunger strikes until finally, just over two years into his sentence, he gained early parole and embarked on a daring escape from South America . . .

In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society - perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism.

Seamus O'Mahony charts the realities of work in the 'ministry of bodies', that huge complex where people come to be cured and to die. From unexpected deaths to moral quandaries and bureaucratic disasters, O'Mahony documents life in the halls and wards that all of us will visit at some point in our lives with his characteristic wit and dry and unsentimental intelligence.

Traumatised by the death of a child in her care, top London paediatrician Claire seeks refuge on remote Selkie Island in the wilds of the Irish Sea with her husband Daniel and their baby daughter Kitty. Hidden away in Daniel’s old family home, Claire hopes to be as cut off from her guilt as she is from the mainland, but can she find peace in a place so full of its own secrets? Twenty years earlier, Daniel’s parents left the island in a boat and never made it to the mainland.

When a career-ending injury saw former Ireland and Millwall striker Richie Sadlier retire from football at age 24, his life spiralled out of control. Without structure or a sense of purpose, fuelled by a dependency on alcohol, he spent years running from the dark memories and feelings that had haunted him since childhood. Until one day he hit rock bottom and decided to confront his demons.

Every family has a story.... But for the Guinness family a happy ending looks out of reach. Olly and Mae's marriage is crumbling, their teenage daughter Evie is on a mission to self-destruct and their beloved Pops is dying of cancer. Their once strong family unit is slowly falling apart. But Pops has one final gift to offer his beloved family - a ray of hope to cling to. As his life's journey draws to a close, he sends his family on an adventure across Europe in a camper van, guided by his letters, his wisdom and his love.

A forgotten childhood. A discovered life. The poignant new best-seller from Cecelia Ahern. What if you only had one day to find out who you really were? When Sabrina Boggs stumbles upon a mysterious collection of her father's possessions, she discovers a truth where she never knew there was a lie. The familiar man she grew up with is suddenly a stranger to her. An unexpected break in her monotonous daily routine leaves her just one day to unlock the secrets of the man she thought she knew.

A gripping investigation into one of Irish history's greatest mysteries, Great Hatred reveals the true story behind one of the most significant political assassinations to ever have been committed on British soil. On 22 June 1922, Sir Henry Wilson—the former head of the British army and one of those credited with winning the First World War—was shot and killed by two veterans of that war turned IRA members in what was the most significant political murder to have taken place on British soil for more than a century.

When Richard Hayes, a gifted polymath and cryptographer, was drafted by Irish intelligence services to track the movements of a prolific Nazi spy, Hermann Görtz, it set in motion one of the most remarkable episodes in Irish history. What followed was a high-stakes game of cat and mouse that would wind its way through the capital and its suburbs, reverberate through the corridors of power, test the sympathies of those in high society and even expand to jeopardise the Allied war effort.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Test, the stunning autobiography from rugby legend Brian O'Driscoll, read by Aidan Kelly. Between 1999, when he made his international debut, and his retirement in 2014, there was no greater player in world rugby than Brian O'Driscoll. In 2010 Rugby World magazine named him its world player of the decade - and since then the legend has only grown.

When Mahony returns to Mulderrig, a speck of a place on Ireland's west coast, he brings only his handsome face, a photograph of his long-lost mother and a determination to do battle with the village's lies. Mahony also somehow wakes the dead from their graves, with their foggy memories and hidden stories floating greyly amongst the unseeing living. No one, though - living or dead - will be able to guess what happened to the teenage mother who abandoned him as a baby.