{"product_id":"the-lives-of-padraic-o-conaire-9781806900725","title":"The Lives of Padraic O Conaire","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePADRAIC O CONAIRE\u003c\/strong\u003e was an orphan from Galway who became a London civil servant, a socialist agitator, a common-law husband, and the writer of some of the most fearless fiction ever produced in the Irish language. By the time Padraic O Conaire died in 1928, aged forty-six, he had spent a lifetime hiding, embellishing and contradicting the story of his own existence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on two decades of original archival research, \u003cstrong\u003eAindrias Ó Cathasaigh \u003c\/strong\u003estrips away a century of myth-making to reveal a figure stranger and more compelling than the beloved bohemian of classroom legend. His novel \u003cem\u003eDeoraíocht\u003c\/em\u003e made money itself the engine of its tragedy. His story \u003cem\u003eNóra Mharcais Bhig\u003c\/em\u003e – the first in any language to trace an Irish woman's journey to England to deal with a crisis pregnancy – was radical in 1907 and remained controversial in school classrooms eighty years later. In Gaelic League halls and Sinn Féin meeting rooms, he argued that national independence without socialism was no independence at all. Then he left his family in London, came home in the lead-up to the 1916 Easter Rising, and it all got more complicated.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eÓ Cathasaigh is a superb guide through the contradictions – the tenderness and the cruelty, the radical politics and the Free State propaganda, the man who was always a step ahead of whoever was trying to pin him down. This is biography that reads like the best kind of detective novel. For readers of Roy Foster's \u003cem\u003eVivid Faces\u003c\/em\u003e and Fintan O'Toole's \u003cem\u003eJudging Shaw\u003c\/em\u003e – and for anyone who has ever studied Ó Conaire and suspected there was far more to the man than the statue on Eyre Square in Galway.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLiterary biography | Irish language and culture | \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication date:\u003c\/strong\u003e 21 September 2026\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e Height 197 mm; Width 130 mm; Thickness 22 mm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Mercier Press\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/strong\u003e English\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9781806900725\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"O Cathasaigh","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":67802839023866,"sku":"9781806900725","price":10.94,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0522\/4297\/2845\/files\/9781806900725.jpg?v=1792462072","url":"https:\/\/shulphink.com\/products\/the-lives-of-padraic-o-conaire-9781806900725","provider":"Shulph Ink","version":"1.0","type":"link"}