# EXTRACT
Last month
December 2022
# Looking Back
'March 2nd, 2014 was one of the most important days of my life'
Read an extract from ‘Ian McKinley: Second Sight: Rugby and Redemption.’
# EXTRACT
'Charlton’s team sure set a mighty bandwagon in motion'
Paul Doyle recalls the circumstances surrounding Ireland’s famous 1994 World Cup clash with Italy.
# Anecdotes
'So, what’s your best Phil Mickelson story?'
Read an extract from ‘Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar.’
# Irish writing
The Irish Read: David Hayden writes about boyhood and home
This week we have an extract from Hayden’s essay from ‘well I just kind of liked it’, a collection of writing on art and the home.
Last year
2022
# EXTRACT
'Football was a diversion. I was a doctor'
A look at how Tostão and other members of the Brazil 1970 World Cup-winning team dealt with their success.
Voices
Extract: A pot of boiling water can lead to a glorious, simple and cheap meal
Tamar Adler shares an excerpt from the new hardback edition of her book, An Everlasting Meal.
# EXTRACT
The Irish Read: 'Summers were for plants and foolishness, autumns for oblivion'
Read an extract from Andrew Meehan’s latest novel, Instant Fires, published by New Island.
Voices
Extract: What it was like to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement
The head of the Irish delegation at the Anglo-Irish Secretariat in Belfast, David Donoghue, writes about the experience.
Voices
Extract: Making sense of a united Ireland - which was long deemed impossible
Brendan O’Leary’s new book looks at how a united Ireland might happen and how it might work best.
Voices
Extract: I was in the prison when the call came through: 'We have a situation'
Former prison officer David McDonald has written a book about his career – in this extract, he writes about the beginning of a riot.
# Irish writing
The Irish Read: An extract from Aingeala Flannery's debut - inspired by life in Tramore
Read an extract from Aingela Flannery’s new book, The Amusements.
# Looking Back
'I heard 5 explosions' - When an English footballing legend came to Sligo
Remembering Dixie Dean’s stint at the Showgrounds.
# homegrown writing
The Irish Read: Cristín Leach shares the story of getting her first tattoo post-divorce
Read an extract from the art critic’s first book, a memoir.
Voices
Extract: Clothing doesn't just tell us about ourselves - it tells us about the beauty and cruelty of the world
Writer and artist Sofi Thanhauser has written a people’s history of clothing, and in this extract she writes about what clothing can teach us about the world and history.
Voices
Extract: 'I knew that it was too dangerous to bicycle down O’Connell Street, for fear of being shot'
An extract from the memoir of Republican Máire Comerford, about an incident during the Civil War.
# Faith
'Each morning, I pause here beside Michaela and pray'
Read an extract from Mickey Harte’s book ‘Devotion’.
# Recovery
'All the energy that I had devoted to racing, I now had to redirect into getting better'
Read an extract from ‘Champion’ by Pat Smullen.
# Advice
'Losing weight is a lot like baking a cake'
Read an extract from ‘The Keane Edge’ by Brian Keane.
# Looking Back
'Christy Ring unleashed a devastating display of hurling to score 3 goals in a 4-minute spell'
Read an extract from Semple Stadium: Field of Legends by Liam Ó Donnchú.
# rebirth
'When everything else goes to s**t you’ve still got your team... Until it gets taken away'
Read an extract from Michael Calvin’s ‘Whose Game is it Anyway?’
All time
# Influence
'Rashford had helped raise around £20million for FareShare, shattering his initial target of £100,000'
Read an extract from ‘The Dream Factory’.
# Looking Back
'We wouldn’t wear the club colours and if the ‘parkie’ came along we’d disappear'
Terry Palmer remembers his time at Shamrock Rovers.
# moments in time
'48 metres out, just off-centre of the posts, the pressure of four nations on his shoulders'
Read an extract from ‘Legacy of the Lions’.
# Best Laid Plans
'Eriksson accepted the position of United manager, and had even signed a contract'
Read an extract from ‘Sir Alex: Simply the Best’.
# Grief
'I wasn’t told about his death until immediately after the game'
Read an extract from Willie Anderson’s ‘Crossing the Line’.
# Diagnosis
'He wondered if rugby was responsible, blamed himself for letting me play'
Read an extract from ‘Too Many Reasons to Live.’
# Star
''Once the term ‘Dublin footballer’ was mentioned, people looked at and treated me differently''
Read an extract from Shane Carthy’s ‘Dark Blue’.
# Upset
The story of the Irish duo that helped pull off a famous college basketball victory
How Michael Bree and Conor Grace contributed to Davidson College’s shock win over North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
# pain
'I would go and spar sometimes with the worst headaches but I was too proud'
Read an extract from ‘Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing.’
# perspective
'I stopped worrying about rugby after Axel died'
Read an extract from Keith Earls’ book ‘Fight or Flight’.
# Tips
GAA stars reveal tips that helped them make it to the top
Read an extract from ‘The Players’ Advice’.
# Shock
'I saw 89 missed calls...You’ll be named today as failing a drugs test'
Read an extract from Unbroken’ by Aidan O’Mahony.
# EXTRACT
'I was never afraid to go abroad, thinking it was going to damage my Ireland chances'
Read about Cilian Sheridan’s globetrotting career in our extract from Emerald Exiles: How the Irish Made Their Mark on World Football by Barry Landy.
# Prodigy
'The scribes wrote about the arrival of the complete footballer, a boy capable of excellence in all positions'
Read an extract from ‘Tales From The Debenhams Picket Line’.
Voices
Extract: 'Thanks to climate change, Ireland's coastlines won't be in the same place'
What does the future look like for Ireland’s coasts? Two of the authors of the An Post Irish Book Awards-nominated Coastal Atlas of Ireland explain.
Voices
Extract: 'Well', I said to her - 'I have something to ask you but I don’t want to upset you'
In this extract from her book, Philippa Ryder writes about a question she asked her wife-to-be which changed the course of her life.
Voices
Martin Hayes: 'One night my father said - a stór, maybe the fiddle isn't the instrument for you'
In this extract from his new memoir, the renowned fiddle player writes about his arduous journey to learning the instrument – and the support he got from his dad.
Voices
Larry Donnelly: When politics is the business of an Irish-American political family
In the first chapter of his new book, Larry Donnelly describes how politics ran in the veins of his family.
Voices
Singer Loah: 'In college I found my calling - with a bit of help from Radiohead'
Sallay Matu-Garnett, also known by her performance name Loah, on what she learned about herself during her time in Trinity.
# Big Money
'Visitors for the fight had spent $92 million... What one tourism official compared to four New Year’s Eves'
Read an extract from ‘The War: Hagler-Hearns and Three Rounds for the Ages.’
