Showing results by narrator "Aidan Kelly" in All Categories

After being expelled from school for playing football for his country, fifteen-year-old Liam Brady travelled to London to join Arsenal, and soon became an indispensable part of their glorious 1970s team. Rightly considered one of the Republic of Ireland's best-ever footballers, he went on to enjoy successes with Juventus, Sampdoria and West Ham, as well as managing Celtic and Brighton and Hove, and becoming assistant manager of his national team. Today he is best known for his much-respected TV punditry and searingly intelligent insights into the game he adores.

More preoccupied with drinking, sleeping, and writing, an unnamed student neglects his studies and invents three separate openings for a novel. The first introduces the Pooka MacPhellimey, "a member of the devil class", the second involves Mr. John Furriskey, a character belonging to another of the student's creations (writer Dermot Trellis), while the final opening features legendary Irish heroes Finn Mac Cool and Mad King Sweeny. Soon, Trellis' creations rebel against him, doing as they like while he sleeps, and the characters begin wandering in and out of each other's tales.

When he unexpectedly loses his job, Herbie struggles to find new meaning. His wife, the great love of his life, has long left him for a Southerner, and his daughter has fled Belfast for London in search of work and an easier life. But a local cafe under new ownership, a friend in need and an unexpected spark of romance give Herbie something to wake up for. By turns moving and funny, topical and sharp, it is a life-affirming story of a life not yet over.

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.

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.

A body found below a cliff is not what it seems, and a deadly heist is underway in this enjoyable Irish murder mystery. Whilst junior detectives rush to the scene of a potential murder near Roundstone, Connemara, an informant lets on to DCI Mick Hays that a big robbery is about to take place. With a large part of Galway’s police force mobilised to catch the felons in the act, resources are stretched. Will the robbers walk into the trap? Is the information reliable? Are they sufficiently prepared?

A woman is found dead in a local businessman’s holiday let. Detectives uncover some shady dealings. But did he kill her? The charm of a West of Ireland holiday home is somewhat tarnished when a woman’s body is found in the property. There are few clues as to her identity. However, in her hand is found a small solid-gold ingot. Galway-based DI Maureen Lyons is drawn out to the sticks to take on the case. Suspicion naturally falls on the property’s owner, who runs a large discount store, lives beyond his means and has an over-zealous interest in the ladies.

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.

DI Maureen Lyons investigates a difficult case of foul play. The show is under way, but the gaiety is brought to an abrupt halt with the discovery of a dead man in a horsebox. Whilst the teenaged owner of the horse runs off in fright, detectives are quickly dispatched to investigate what is soon established as murder. Given the suspicious activity of the organisers, and the peculiar occupation of the victim, the Irish police have a conundrum on their hands.

As the train rattled westward on the outskirts of Dublin, James Berry didn’t stand out amongst his fellow passengers, but they couldn’t see the long, Italian silk rope coiled in the black leather bag by his side, nor the white cap and pinion straps, nor the revolver in his coat pocket. Galway, the winter of 1885. The violent murders of John Moylan, killed on a dark country lane, and Alice Burns, shot dead in the dining room of the Royal Hotel, have shaken the county. Now, following painstaking investigations and charged courtroom drama, justice beckons for the guilty parties.

In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island, inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?

Following the end of the First World War, Eneas McNulty joins the British-led Royal Irish Constabulary. With all those around him becoming soldiers of a different kind, however, it proves to be the defining decision of his life when, having witnessed the murder of a fellow RIC policeman, he is wrongly accused of identifying the executioners. With a sentence of death passed over him, he is forced to flee Sligo, leaving behind his friends, family and beloved girl, Viv.

Barry Geraghty is an Irish horseracing legend. From his first win in 1997 he has gone on to ride almost 2,000 winners, making him the fourth most accomplished rider of all time. With more wins at Cheltenham than any other jockey riding today, he has worked with all the greats - Moscow Flyer, Kicking King, Monty’s Pass. But while they have retired, he has kept on going....

Are detectives right to think that the brutal murder of a pensioner is more than just a burglary gone wrong? A health worker visiting clients in a remote area on the West Coast of Ireland has a nasty surprise when she finds a reclusive old man dead in his armchair in his tumbledown cottage. When the local Garda is called, it soon becomes obvious that this is no death from natural causes. The man has been tortured and his house ransacked.

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.

It's Dublin, June 1995, the hottest summer since records began. But Billy Sweeney, a middle-aged salesman with a failed marriage, a faltering career and a tumbledown house, has more than weather on his mind. His youngest daughter lies in a coma in hospital following a mysterious attack on the petrol station where she worked. Devastated by the unfolding consequences of that hot, violent night, frustrated by officialdom and failed by the system, Billy finally tires of seeking legal justice. He decides to take the law into his own hands..

A local businessman’s plane crashes into bogland killing all three occupants.... Galway’s detectives investigate. It’s not long before experts establish that the small aircraft’s engine had been tampered with. From dealing with a tragic accident, senior DI Maureen Lyons is suddenly launching a murder inquiry. The initial police investigation centres on the pilot, the local property development tycoon, Gerald Fortune. The other occupants are seen as unfortunate bystanders.

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.

Aspiring actress Elizabeth Smart lands her centre-stage role: her mutilated body is found dumped in North London's red light district. Clasped in her hand is a piece of human hair belonging to an unidentified body of a woman murdered two weeks ago. PC Donal lands himself a place on the murder squad just as his unconventional brother, journalist Finton, unearths the secret double life of Elizabeth. The bodies mount, each clinging to the strands of hair belonging to the previous victim.

The Irish Classics Collection is a wide-ranging collection of 9 classic works of fiction and poetry by Irish authors, read by an award-winning cast of narrators. Included here are stories by some of the greatest writers of all time, including James Joyce; Bram Stoker; Oscar Wilde; W.B. Yeats; Elizabeth Bowen; and more.