Few figures are more respected and quoted internationally than Fintan O'Toole, both as a controversial and provocative political commentator and theatre critic. This extensive collection brings together a wide range of his writings going back to 1980. It provides a privileged insight into the great moments of contemporary Irish theatre, marking the contributions of playwrights (Carr, Murphy, Friel, McGuinness), directors (Hynes, Byrne), actors (Hickey, McKenna), and designers (Vanek, Frawley). It also demonstrates his unsettling of the usual "canon," with his thoughtful arguments promoting certain playwrights who deserve to up be there with Ireland's best, including Antoine O'Flatharta, Paul Mercier, Dermot Bolger, and David Byrne.

Redmond O'Hanlon describes his extraordinary three-week trip on an Orkney trawler as it journeys far into the north Atlantic in search of its catch. Young skipper Jason Schofield has a 2 million pound overdraft on his boat, the Norlantean, which is why he has to go out in a Category One Force 12 hurricane when the rest of the Scottish fleet has run for shelter. O'Hanlon may not be much help when it comes to seamanship - in the words of one of the crew, he doesn't know his arse from his tit - but he is able to wax lyrical on the amazing deep-sea fish to be found north of the Wyville Thomson Ridge: greater argentine, flying squid, blue ling, the truly disgusting hagfish and many other exotics. Combining humour with erudition, O'Hanlon has written a vivid and compulsively readable account of a journey that for sheer terror beats all his previous adventures.

Armed with equipment and advice from 22 SAS, Hereford, and accompanied by three trackers, Redmond O'Hanlon, the naturalist, and James Fenton, the poet, set out on a long river voyage into the interior of a tropical jungle hoping to reach the Tiban massif. At once funny and knowledgeable, Redmond O'Hanlon's account of how they battled with insects, discomfort and setbacks is a hugely entertaining and informative adventure story in the best tradition of the world's great travel classics.

In 1986, Redmond O'Hanlon decided to undertake a four-month trip through Venezuala, up the Orinoco River and across the Amazon Basin. The trip involved the risk of contracting dysentery, rabies and river blindness, encountering jaguars, vipers, anacondas, 640-volt electric eels, and giant catfish known to bite off human feet. He struggled to find a willing travelling companion. In Trouble Again is the gripping, hilarious and unpredictable account of that trip, as one intrepid ornithologist and his unsuspecting Oxford chum stumble from one catastrophe to the next.

Having survived Borneo, Amazonia, and the Congo, Redmond O'Hanlon now ventures into his own perfect storm in the wildest waters he could find.
His rendezvous with destiny begins aboard a trawler converted for deep-sea fishing at a cost of $3 million-which is why its young skipper's setting out from Scotland's northern tip when the rest of the fleet is running for safe harbor. Equipped with a fancy Nikon, an excessive supply of socks and no seamanship whatsoever, O'Hanlon joins a crew of five who stock a bottomless hull with the catch, day after sleepless day, even as the hurricane threatens to wash them overboard. While he helps inventory the creatures of the deepest North Atlantic-from jellycats to the wormlike hagfish, unchanged since its evolution more than 500 million years ago-his shipmates exchange manic monologues that range from their woeful longing for loyal women to trade laws and complex fishing quotas.
Rich in oceanography, marine biology and men's lives, "Trawler reveals once again the inimitable spirit of the man Bill Bryson has called "probably the finest writer of travel books in the English language, and certainly the most daring."

"From the Hardcover edition.

Combining the acute observation of a nineteenth-century missionary, and the wit of a Monty Python player, Redmond O'Hanlon is famous for his adventurous travel. His new challenge is the Congo, the most dangerous and inhospitable jungle in the world.

O'Hanlon takes us into the bug-ridden rain forest between the Orinoco and the Amazon--infested with jaguars and piranhas, where men would kill over a bottle of ketchup and where the locals may be the most violent people on earth (next to hockey fans).

The story of a 1983 journey to the center of Borneo, which no expedition had attempted since 1926. O'Hanlon, accompanied by friend and poet James Fenton and three native guides brings wit and humor to a dangerous journey.