A young girl, Flo, befriends an old horse kept in the stables of her riding school. She learns that this horse, Augustus, was once a world champion show jumper but is now crippled and bitter. Is it Flo's imagination or is there always the same magpie somewhere near this horse? Little does she know that the two animals are lifelong friends who share a magical secret. Flo soon discovers that she is finding her way into more than simply the story of Augustus, the once-famous horse now nicknamed 'Peg Leg Gus'. This is a story that touches on sadness and loss in a way that is often avoided in books for younger readers. It is a book about hope and love and how a girl’s open heart transforms the bitter and wounded old horse.

This memoir tells the story of the first twenty-one years of my life, growing up and coming of age in the working class Dublin Corporation housing estate of Crumlin. Although humorous when telling my tale, the book also includes stories of abuse, death and loss. The chapters unfold from my unlikely birth - the youngest of fifteen children - to Crumlin life, the death of my brother Paddy in a London road accident and the abuse I suffered through a 'Christian' Brother at school. From a little boy priest in Blackrock College and then as an apprentice projectionist in the Kenilworth Cinema and a year as clapper/loader in Ardmore Studios. The story goes on through my difficult teenage years of alienation from my father and his death at the age of seventy, a month before my 21st birthday and a few months before my marrying my pregnant 18-year-old girlfriend. That marked the end of my life in 147, Leighlin Road and the start of my life as a married man and father-to-be. This book will be of interest to anyone of a Dublin/Irish heritage who will understand my journey. Back in my day emigration, particularly to England, was part of Irish life and that is reflected in my story. I am an experienced storyteller and now I am finally telling my own story of the years that formed the man I am today.

First published in 2006, Barney and Molly: A True Dublin Love Story has now been updated to include additional information on the Duffy and Dowdall families dating back to the times of the Great Famine. The definitive edition of this captivating memoir presents the story of Barney and Molly Duffy, who married in 1926 and raised fifteen children in Dublin amidst tremendous political and social upheaval. Their family journey spans generations, from rural Ireland to London, Toronto, and beyond. Despite facing numerous challenges, Barney and Molly's profound love and devotion to each other remain at the heart of this captivating tale. This memoir offers a glimpse into the lives of those who lived through Ireland's evolution into the country it is today. Martin Duffy, the youngest of the fifteen children and an unexpected late addition to the family saga when born in 1952, pays tribute to his extraordinary family lineage.

Barney and Molly Duffy raised thirteen children in a tiny two-bedroom Dublin Corporation home. Their commitment to family, their strength of character, and their deep love and understanding of each other endured decades of poverty and hardships. Contained in this book is nearly a century of lore compiled by their youngest, the storyteller, from years of family collaboration. It is a story of accomplishments and tragedies, from the slums of Dublin's Inner City to London, Toronto and beyond. It is a tale with many new beginnings, charting the history of the young Irish Republic and its own successes - and at the heart of everything the loving couple, the providers, the life-bringers; Barney and Molly. "This is a book as funny as it is unpretentious, as true as it is colourful, and as skilful as it is readable. It gave me many hours of pure pleasure." - Peter Sheridan, author, 44: Dublin Made Me. ..."a family saga as important as any history of the House of Windsor." - Bob Quinn, author, Smokey Hollow.

By the start of the 20th century many Irish people were living in squalor: the country's infant mortality rate was the highest in Europe and tuberculosis was rampant. The daunting and tireless Lady Ishbel Aberdeen, wife of the British Viceroy to Ireland, devoted herself to social changes that could save lives. But she often faced ridicule because of the contrast between her own high status and her concern for the common man. Arthur Griffith, future president of Ireland, publicly nicknamed her The Viceregal Microbe. This book tells the story of the friction between the struggle for Irish independence and the 'good works' of the Anglo-Irish elite. The mainly Protestant and upper-class women who gathered around Lady Aberdeen through the Women's National Health Association she founded were all fine people with good hearts. But Irish Nationalists treated them with suspicion, and progress in the war against tuberculosis was the casualty. Lady Abderdeen became ever more radical in her campaign for better living conditions for Ireland's poor. The Chief Medical Officer of the Guinness Brewery, John Lumsden, was one of her close allies. By the end of her decades of work (most intensely 1906-1915) in Ireland, Ishbel Aberdeen became as out-spoken as the trade union rebel 'Big Jim' Larkin. She was a strong woman and often alienated people by her relentlessness. She drove herself to exhaustion and her family almost to bankruptcy in her campaign for a better life for Ireland's poor. But in the end she was doomed to be viewed as part of the system of British rule over Ireland. And history belongs to the victor. The contribution of Lady Aberdeen and her volunteers to the welfare of Ireland's poor and sick was largely forgotten in the wake of the country's independence and its nationalist fervour.