Spring 2026 Catalogue

New Titles SPRING 2026

MERRION PRESS

New Title • HISTORY

THE STORY OF US

INDEPENDENT IRELAND AND THE 1926 CENSUS ORLAITH McBRIDE & JOHN GIBNEY On 18 April 1926 the first census of an independent Irish state was undertaken. Across the 26 counties over 700,000 census forms were completed by, or on behalf of, the 2,971,992 people living in the Irish Free State. But what can we know of the lives that they led?

A century later, with the release of the 1926 census by the National Archives on 18 April 2026, those forms come alive again – revealing a nation in transition and a people forging their identity in the early decades of independence. The Story of Us brings together a wide range of scholars to illuminate the individuals and communities hidden within the census returns. From island settlements to expanding cities, from rural farms and urban tenements to the mansions of the aristocracy, the book traces a vibrant cross-section of society. Lavishly illustrated, it explores themes ranging from entertainment and the arts to housing, infrastructure, family life, and social change.

The Story of Us offers not only a compelling portrait of 1926 Ireland but a deeper understanding of the world in which these lives unfolded.

Orlaith McBride has been Director of the National Archives since April 2020. She previously served as Director of the Arts Council, where she led major national initiatives including the 2016 commemorations programme.

She has served on Dublin City University’s Governing Authority and is a member of the Brian Friel Trust.

John Gibney is Assistant Editor with the Royal Irish Academy’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy programme. He was a co-curator of the major international exhibitions presented by the National Archives and the RIA to mark the centenaries of both the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and Irish membership of the League of Nations in 1923.

HARDBACK APRIL 2026 €24.99 / £22.99 9781788551816 216 pages 240 x 190mm COLOUR ILLUSTRATED

New Title • SELF HELP

HAVE I GOT YOUR ATTENTION? A GUIDE TO ADULT ADHD IN IRELAND

AILÍN KENNEDY & MIKE McGRATH-BRYAN Have I Got Your Attention? is a practical and deeply relatable guide to Adult ADHD in Ireland, especially for those who received their diagnosis later in life. Presented in an ADHD-friendly design, with a foreword by Ken Kilbride, it’s packed with information, useful resources and simple tips.

This guide provides clear and comprehensive personal insights, including interviews with nine remarkable Irish voices – artists, medics, writers, inventors and more – each offering a candid glimpse into life as an ADHDer in Ireland.

Providing strategies for navigating your emotions, it’s a toolkit for self-understanding and selfadvocacy – empowering adult ADHDers to build lives that work for them. Have I Got Your Attention? celebrates all the positives that come with ADHD, while acknowledging the hurdles too.

PAPERBACK MARCH 2026 €18.99 / £16.99 9781785375859 264 pages 215 x 135mm

Ailín Kennedy was diagnosed with ADHD at thirty-two and now works as an ADHD coach. Before this, she was a musician with various bands before leaving for Wales to study science. She has now swapped a musician’s life of parties and all-nighters for marathon running.

Mike McGrath-Bryan is a writer and journalist from Cork with twenty years’ experience in Irish and international media including with the Irish Examiner and RTÉ.

Diagnosed as ADHD and autistic, he has contributed to Wired Our Own Way: An Anthology of Irish Autistic Voices (New Island, 2025).

MERRION PRESS

New Title • TRUE CRIME

UNMASKING SAMANTHA COOKES THE MANY LIVES OF A SERIAL FRAUDSTER ALAN BRADLEY Unmasking Samantha Cookes is a chilling true-crime account of a master manipulator who spent more than a decade reinventing herself across the UK and Ireland with an arsenal of false identities. From au pair and nanny to therapist, teacher, psychologist, even terminally ill author and influencer, she slipped into families’ homes and lives with devastating ease.

Behind the charm lay a trail of fraud, deception and fear. A surrogacy scam. Vulnerable families exploited. Communities left shattered. And at the heart of the story, a baby who died in mysterious circumstances – a death that would haunt Samantha as she fled across borders and changed identities to evade scrutiny. Each reinvention brought new victims, until her most audacious lie, a fabricated terminal illness broadcast on radio and TikTok, triggered an online reckoning that finally joined the dots.

Drawing on new and revelatory material, including first-hand testimony from those deceived, Unmasking Samantha Cookes exposes how systemic failures in childcare, professional regulation and social support allowed a con artist to thrive. It is a visceral portrait of psychological manipulation with an unsettling question at its core: how well do we really know the people we trust with our children?

Alan Bradley is an award-winning Irish director, actor and writer working across documentary, television drama and advertising. He won the Young Director Award for Documentary at Cannes 2024 and is the youngest director to hold a prime-time RTÉ One documentary slot. Named a Broadcast Hotshot 2025, he has directed critically acclaimed films including the hit RTÉ/BBC series Bad Nanny.

TRADE PAPERBACK MAY 2026 €18.99 / £17.99 9781785375934 292 pages 226 x 153mm

MERRION PRESS

New Title • CURRENT AFFAIRS

TROUBLED WATERS HOW LOUGH NEAGH IS BEING DESTROYED BY CORPORATE GREED AND POLITICAL NEGLECT TOMMY GREENE In the summer of 2023, the people of the UK and Ireland were stunned when a foul-smelling green algae bloom blanketed the surface of Lough Neagh – the largest freshwater body on these islands – suffocating aquatic life and signalling an unprecedented environmental disaster.

Troubled Waters is a damning exposé, which uncovers the shocking destruction of the lough, the source of almost half of Northern Ireland’s drinking water and a place steeped in historical and cultural significance. Award-winning journalist Tommy Greene delves deep into a gripping tale of greed, corruption, ineptitude and environmental catastrophe that has unfolded in plain sight against a backdrop of governmental instability and systematic cover-ups.

With unrivalled access to the story, Greene exposes the fierce battle that will determine the future of this once-thriving ecosystem, which now teeters on the brink of ecological collapse.

Tommy Greene is an award-winning journalist and writer, regularly contributing to The Guardian, The Irish Times and Al Jazeera. He has received awards from UCD Smurfit School and the Law Society Ireland for his investigative work on environmental issues. His work on Lough Neagh has been widely recognised, and he is currently collaborating with the Field Day Theatre Company on a short film on the subject. Tommy lives and works in Belfast.

TRADE PAPERBACK JULY 2026 €19.99 / £18.99 9781785375637 320 pages 226 x 153mm

MERRION PRESS

New Title • TROUBLES

NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE, LAWLESS AGENT RUNNING AND THE SUPPRESSION OF TRUTH JOHN WARE ‘The State is assassinating people.’ These were the chilling words of a damning note to Tony Blair that stated the facts of Britain’s decades long intelligence war in Northern Ireland. State forces had crossed a line, guided by a secret review from 1980 that quietly rewired Britain’s war, placing intelligence above the law.

What followed was the creation of a vast, covert agent-running machine that penetrated loyalist and republican organisations to unprecedented depths.

Hundreds of informers were authorised to lie, collude and kill. Supporters claim the policy saved lives, helping pave the way to the Good Friday Agreement.

Critics argue it licensed murder, subverted justice and corrupted policing beyond repair.

Full of new and important revelations, this meticulously researched book is the inside story of the decades-long struggle to expose that truth – an attritional battle between detectives, lawyers and a powerful ‘securocracy’ determined to protect its secrets. Focusing on two of the most notorious agents, Brian Nelson and Freddie Scappaticci, it reveals how the State has doggedly fought to control the narrative, silence scrutiny and preserve its legacy, whatever the cost.

John Ware is an award-winning investigative journalist with over four decades’ experience reporting on security, intelligence, and public accountability. A former BBC Panorama correspondent, he has led major investigations into policing, national security, and state power, including extensive reporting on Northern Ireland.

TRADE PAPERBACK MAY 2026 €19.99 / £18.99 9781785375804 392 pages 234 x 153mm

MERRION PRESS

New Title • NATURE

SALT WIND, RISING WATER

PLANTING A WOOD ON IRELAND’S WILD ATLANTIC COAST JOHN S. DOYLE Salt Wind, Rising Water is a gentle ode to nature and a captivating account of how two Dubliners transformed two wild, windswept acres on Sligo’s north coast into a thriving wood, orchard, and garden. Over thirty years, John S. Doyle and his family were welcomed into a vibrant community of writers, painters, and small farmers who encouraged their vision and shared in their journey.

Battling harsh winters, salt-laden winds and dramatic storms, the couple learned resilience, patience, and the hard-earned rewards of working with the land.

Doyle reflects on the highs and lows of this decadeslong endeavour; its setbacks, small miracles, and the deep connection to place that grew alongside the trees.

Blending nature writing, memoir, and practical guidance, this book offers inspiration for anyone dreaming of creating a landscape on a modest budget. At its heart, this is a story of cultivating beauty, nurturing community, and discovering the quiet magic of helping a place take root.

John S. Doyle is a journalist and presents ‘It Says in the Papers’ on Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1. He was the founder editor of In Dublin, the arts and current affairs magazine which flourished in the 1970s and 1980s, and uncovered the talents of such writers as Colm Tóibín and Fintan O’Toole, the photographers Tony O’Shea and Tony Murray, and the cartoonist Tom Mathews.

PAPERBACK MAY 2026 €18.99 / £17.99 9781785375927 256 pages 215 x 135mm

MERRION PRESS

New Title • CURRENT AFFAIRS

GENOCIDE

SPONSORING THE DESTRUCTION OF PALESTINE FINTAN DRURY Genocide is Fintan Drury’s highly-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling Catastrophe: Nakba II, extending his forensic chronicle of the genocide in Gaza into the second year of Israel’s onslaught.

Beginning with Donald Trump’s return to power and culminating in the White House’s bombastic claim of a historic ‘peace deal’, Drury exposes how Western governments deepened their political, military, and moral investment in Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing.

Opening amid the surreal theatre of Trump’s Knesset address and the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit, the book dissects the spectacle, the personalities, and the power relations that excluded the oppressed while rewarding the oppressor. With meticulous research, Drury traces how bombardment, starvation, prison brutality, and territorial expansion were not aberrations but strategy, enabled by Western arms, finance, and diplomatic cover.

He unpicks the Trump–Netanyahu alliance, the mythology of Iran, and the relentless colonisation of Gaza and the West Bank, showing how ‘peace’ was framed around Israel’s entitlements alone.

Genocide argues that without Western sponsorship, this catastrophe could neither have occurred nor continued – and that accountability can no longer be deferred.

Fintan Drury was a journalist with RTÉ in the 1980s and coanchored Morning Ireland for its first three years. In 2016 he volunteered in a refugee camp in Athens, which led to a fifteen-part series in The Irish Times on the diary of a Syrian refugee. His most recent book Catastrophe: Nakba II was shortlisted for Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2025.

PAPERBACK JUNE 2026 €18.99 / £16.99 9781785375958 288 pages 215 x 135mm

MERRION PRESS

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Tuckmill House, 10 George’s Street Newbridge, Co. Kildare, Ireland T: +353 45 432 497 E: info@iap.ie | info@merrionpress.ie This catalogue contains a selection of our most recent titles across a range of subjects. Prices are correct at time of printing, but are subject to change. Please visit our website for a full listing of all our books in print.

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