Showing 1–16 of 18 resultsSorted by latest
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€26.95
Description
Whether it’s tightly rolled up between two nervous, wringing hands, proudly sticking out from a quick-stepping back pocket or carefully brought home to be kept for posterity, the match day programme is part of the very fabric of the GAA and in The GAA Covered this glorious document gets its long overdue day in the sun. The GAA Covered is a stunning visual compendium of over 100 years of GAA programme covers from 1913 to the present day, and an invaluable collection of local, social and sports history. Each page of this comprehensive collection features striking images of that year’s provincial and All-Ireland final match programmes, along with superb captions of context and colour.
John Kelly’s labour of love will mesmerise GAA fans – from the diehard who will appreciate the compilation of such a wide range of programmes to the casual fan who will be enthralled by the immense beauty of the book.
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€24.95
Description
THE NO. 1 BESTSELLERIn his hotly anticipated autobiography, Johnny Sexton tells the story of his life and explores the sources of his unmatched will to win. ‘Sexton will go down as Ireland’s greatest ever player’ Gordon D’Arcy, Irish Times___________________Four European Cups.
Four Six Nations championships (including two Grand Slams). A series win in New Zealand. Two stints for Ireland at number 1 in the world.
And the World Player of the Year award. No Irish rugby player has ever achieved more, or been a source of more inspiration to teammates and fans alike, than Johnny Sexton. Outspoken, on and off the field, Sexton offers an honest look at his childhood, his relationships with key teammates and coaches (including Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell, Ronan O’Gara, Joe Schmidt and Andy Farrell), and his ideas about the game.
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€24.95
After first emerging in the 1920s, ladies Gaelic football was soon sidelined; breathless women chasing after a football was just too unladylike for the powers that be. Despite this resistance, the sport became a popular novelty act at local carnivals. And when the Ladies GaelicFootball Association (LGFA) was founded in Tipperary in July 1974, fifty years of extraordinary growth were set in motion.
From writing the rule book to a membership of nearly 200,000, the earliest All-Stars to game-changing partnerships, this definitive history captures that unstoppable journey to becoming a national sport and so much more. Lavishly illustrated and drawing from national, club and personal archives, UNLADYLIKE is for the players, the fans, the kit-washers, the sandwich-makers and the supporters alike, and confirms the best is yet to come.
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€27.95
This official IRFU story of Irish rugby marks the union’s 150-year anniversary and considers the scaffolding that upholds Irish rugby today: the provinces, the clubs, the schools and the underage structure.
Featuring interviews with a who’s who of Irish rugby including Ollie Campbell, Peter Clohessy, Fiona Coghlan, Ciaran Fitzgerald, Jack Kyle, Paul O’Connell, Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara, Tony O’Reilly, Joe Schmidt, Fiona Steed and Tony Ward, it shows that perhaps the greatest service that Irish rugby has given the island over the last 150 years is to be a very rare unifying force. In our history, where a ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality has been such a recurring feature, rugby has offered an alternative vision and showcased a different path towards creating the harmony of ‘the four proud provinces of Ireland’.
Beautifully illustrated with over 150 photographs from INPHO photographic agency, it captures the richness of the story of Irish rugby.
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€12.95
At a crossroads in her life, Gráinne Lyons set out to travel Ireland’s west coast on foot. She set a simple intention: to walk in the footsteps of eleven pioneering Irish women deeply rooted in this coastal landscape and explore their lives and work along the way. As a Londoner born to Irish parents, she also sought answers in her own identity.
As Gráinne heads north from Cape Clear Island where her great-grandmother was a lacemaker, she considers Ellen Hutchins, Maude Delap, Edna O’Brien, Granuaile and Queen Maeve among others from her unique perspective. Their homes – in places that are famously wild and remote – are transformed into sites of hope, purpose, opportunity and inspiration. Walking through this history, her journey reveals unexpected insight into emigrant identity, travelling alone, femininity and the trappings of an ‘ideal’ life.
Against the backdrop and power of this great ocean, Wild Atlantic Women will inspire the twenty-first-century reader and walker to keep going, regardless of the path.
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€19.95
“Being a footballer was my destiny.” 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.
Full of honest insights, amusing anecdotes and recollections of extraordinary times, with Born to be a Footballer Brady delivers a compelling story of a fifty-year career that is unparalleled in Irish sport.
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€16.95
The GAA is Ireland’s largest civil society organisation, woven into the fabric of families and communities – and yet most books about Gaelic games focus on the greatest players and inter-county teams. This is the Life is a book about the 99 per cent: a witty and provocative look at grassroots GAA from the most intelligent and interesting Gaelic games pundit at work today.
Ciarán Murphy – of Second Captains and the Irish Times – has an unmatched feel for the timeless elements of this world and a finger on the pulse of change. He looks at the plight of rural clubs that are losing their players to the cities – and he does so not only as a journalist but as a footballer who made the same move himself (and who once, flying home to play a club match, found himself alone on the plane with Jedward). He writes about working as an assistant in the clothing shop owned by the family of Jarlath Fallon – who was both Ciaran’s all-time sporting hero and the local postman. And he looks at things we usually prefer not to talk about, like the role of social class in the GAA.
This is the Life is a book about the places the GAA comes from, the places it can take a person, and the things that make a local club worth fighting for.
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€17.50
The remarkable inside story of how two Hollywood A-listers, Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, stunned the football world by buying a non-league club in North Wales. It was one of the most extraordinary takeovers British football has known. In February 2021, Ryan Reynolds joined with Rob McElhenney to buy Wrexham AFC, a non-league team in North Wales.
Wrexham, a former coal and steel town dealing with its post-industrial legacy, suddenly found itself at the centre of global attention, with broadcast networks around the world descending to discover what was going on. The club became the subject of a smash hit Disney+ docu-series, Welcome to Wrexham. Tinseltown tells the story of this extraordinary, unpredictable and often surreal football takeover and the remarkable events that followed.
Written with the full cooperation of Wrexham AFC, it is the inside story of what happened when Hollywood met a dot on a map. How a town was transformed when its football club, aspiring only to survive on the fifth rung of the British football ladder, was sprinkled with gold dust and found ambition again. With unique access to players, the manager and the club’s executives, the book charts the club’s attempts to climb up the pyramid, providing a vivid sense of what it is like to play for this ‘Hollywood’ team and the pressure and spotlight that comes with it.
At their only press conference since buying the club, nobody laughed when Reynolds and McElhenney said the Premier League could be an aspiration. ‘Couldn’t we theoretically make this happen?’ McElhenney asked. ‘Why not dream big?’ added Reynolds. ‘If you don’t dream big, you will never go there, so why not?’
Tinseltown is the story of how they did just that.
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€17.50
The inside story of Mikel Arteta’s astonishing transformation of ArsenalNovember 2019. Unai Emery’s final game as Arsenal manager sees the Gunners languishing eighth in the league. Appointed in the dying embers of the Wenger years, Emery’s 18 months as Arsenal boss has seen the team and the club go backwards – playing unimaginative, pragmatic football, and recently losing to London rivals Chelsea in the final of the Europa League.
Something had to change; a fresh head with fresh ideas. A new leader.This is the story of how Mikel Arteta turned Arsenal into one of the most exciting, innovative and feared teams in the league. From cutting his teeth as an assistant under Pep Guardiola before joining Arsenal in the winter of 2019, through to title contenders years later – including bust-ups, Covid, disappointments, FA Cup wins, fan revolt, and eventually the rise of an extraordinary young team standing on the edge of greatness – this book will be the first of its kind to explore the workings of Arteta’s philosophy and how he transformed the club from outsiders to title challengers.With chapters on his tactical innovations, in-game strategies, transfer insight and, of course, an account of the memorable 2022-23 season – Revolution is the story of an extraordinary football ascent and the first draft of Arsenal’s new history.
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€12.00
THIS BOOK is the story of a boy, a calf and one of
the biggest football clubs in the world.
It is also a story of how one person can change
many people’s lives.
All great journeys begin with a single step. As a
boy, Brother Walfrid did not know he was starting
a great journey when he sold a calf at County
Sligo’s Ballymote Fair and took the boat to
Scotland.
Every day, people are starting great journeys and
they don’t even know it. They are just trying, like
Walfrid, to make people’s lives better by helping
others who are not as fortunate as them. Walfrid
helped people and started one of the world’s most
well-known football clubs.
Perhaps readers of Brother Walfrid’s story may
start a great journey of their own one day?
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€22.95
Infused with the authors’ abiding love of their native Sligo and their lifelong infatuation with the world of sport, Local Heroes: A Celebration of Sligo Sport offers a fascinating and vivid insight into what it takes to be a bona fide local hero. Featuring the most comprehensive collection of Sligo sports stars ever assembled between the covers of a book, award-winning journalists Jim and Leo Gray tell the gripping stories of more than 60 sportsmen and sportswomen whose exploits have earned them an exalted place in any pantheon of all-time greats.
Unlikely as it may seem, Sligo’s fingerprints are to be found at some of the world’s iconic sporting events, from the Olympic Games to the Aintree Grand National; the FA Cup final to the Tour de France; major golf tournaments to the Premier League. Those stories are related here with deep insights from the participants, history-makers who proudly put Sligo on the sporting map. But the pages are laced, too, with heroic endeavours of sportsmen and sportswomen who may not be so well known outside their native county, but whose achievements have marked them as immortal local legends.
In more than 70 essays across a vast range of sports, the veteran reporters cast a new spotlight on the county’s big occasions at venues such as Croke Park, the Aviva Stadium, Cheltenham and Olympic Games stadia, as well as taking a deep dive into the local cauldron of sporting activity, highlighting events and characters who have illuminated the county’s rich sporting heritage.
Local Heroes is intended as a permanent monument to those whose sporting greatness has enriched the lives of generations of Sligonians.
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€18.95
What makes the perfect swim?It’s all about the most magical locations (and how to protect them), finessing your kitbag, keeping yourself and others safe . . . and maybe discovering a nice place for a warm-up cuppa and cake.
Whether you’re a seasoned dipper or a fledgling, The Art of Wild Swimming is the ultimate guide to becoming an awesome, joyful and responsible swimmer. From the dramatic Atlantic bays to cascading waterfalls and secret pools, the rugged Causeway Coast to the secluded loughs of the Wicklow Mountains, locals who know the secrets of their patch share over 100 spectacular swim spots across Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Now they are yours to explore too.
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€6.95
They are the chosen few who have drunk from the chalice of immortality. They are the men and women who have been part of the 100 GREAT GAA TEAMS. For GAA fans, our great teams bring colour and richness to our lives.
When our team is on a winning streak it imbues us with a deep feeling of solidarity and a glow that uplifts the spirit. Great teams have that special power which energises and connects us. They inspire, make our hearts beat faster and let us dare to dream.
All the great and the good are here: Jim Gavin’s Dublin; Brian Cody’s Kilkenny, Mick O’Dwyer’s Kerry; Christy Ring’s Cork; Sean Boylan’s Meath; Ger Loughnane’s Clare; Mickey Harte’s Tyrone; Nicky Rackard’s Wexford; Galway’s three-in-row; Liam Sheedy’s Tipperary; Mayo’s team of the 50s and many more. 100 GREAT GAA TEAMS is a fantastic tribute to the great teams in football, hurling, camogie and ladies’ football that have thrilled fans down the years.
9781785303555
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€21.95
A moving and lyrical memoir about life, love and loss, from a true giant of Gaelic games. In a frenetic seven-year spell at the outset of his senior managerial career, Mickey Harte led Tyrone to four Ulster Championships and three All-Irelands.
It was a run that shifted football’s balance of power, changed the way the game would be played for over a generation, and cemented his reputation as one of the most transformative figures in GAA history. Then, in January 2011, the visitation of a shocking tragedy changed everything: Mickey’s daughter Michaela was murdered while on honeymoon in Mauritius, and the Harte family, grief-stricken, awoke to find themselves at the centre of an international news story. Devotion, the product of a collaboration between Mickey and author Brendan Coffey, is many things.
The story of a family’s decade-long struggle to come to terms with an almost unimaginable loss. A meditation on the ways in which faith, community, and sport can sustain us in our most difficult moments. And, finally, a portrait of one of Irish sport’s true icons, as he brings one legendary era to a close and steels himself for a final assault on the history books.
9780008473037
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€45.00
Written by Shane Bisgood. Both an instruction book and also an indispensable guide to shotgun shooting… Whether you are experienced or a complete novice this book gives Knowledge found within it is Method, simply learnt, completely logical and delightfully effective. Combine that with advice on legal matters, maintenance, good practice, suitable ammunition, suitable firearms and at least one address for a tailor! “I was so delighted upon unwrapping your wonderful book and just kept telling myself I would write you as soon as I finished reading it. What an amazing shot gunners book. In all honesty, I don’t feel there has ever been one written that can hold a candle to yours. Your method/s of teaching far exceed that of any shotgun instruction to be found. You have a unique (and gifted) manner of making everything so “understandable” be it a novice or an accomplished shooter such as myself.” Gary Faules, USA, who still holds records as a former Olympic skeet shooter.
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€17.50
Description
This is an incredibly inspiring exploration of the sea’s role in the wellness of people and the planet, beautifully written by Easkey Britton – surfer, scientist and social activist. She offers a powerful female perspective on the sea and surfing, explaining what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world and how she promoted the sport to women in Iran, surfing while wearing a hijab. She speaks of the undiscussed taboo around entering the water while menstruating – and of how she has come to celebrate her own bodily cycles.
She has developed her own approach to surfing, which instead of seeking to dominate the waves, works in tune with the natural cycles of her body, the moon and the seasons. In a society that rewards busyness, she believes that understanding the influence of cycles becomes even more important – and we all have them, men and women. For Easkey, the sea is a source of mental and physical wellbeing.
She explores the mental toughness needed in big-wave surfing, and presents surfing as an embodied mindfulness practice in which we can find flow and connect with the movement of the waves. She stresses the need to recognize the ocean as our most powerful ally when addressing our greatest global challenge: the climate crisis. Above all, Easkey’s relationship to the sea has taught her about the need to meet life and evolve with it, rather than seeking to control it.
By such wisdom our planet might just survive and thrive.
