Thursday sees the publication of my new book THE TAOISEACH.
Back in 2021, I edited a book called The Prime Ministers. It was a collection of 55 essays, each written by a different historian, politician or journalist, on the 53 men and two women who had held the office of British Prime Minister in the 300 years since Sir Robert Walpole came to power in 1721.
I followed it up with a similar book on American Presidents, one on English and British Kings and Queens and, in 2024, a collection of essays on 64 of the world’s most infamous dictators.
So what next, I thought to myself? I considered Australian Prime Ministers, French Presidents and German Chancellors, but then I thought about looking at the (then) 15 men who had served in the office of Irish Taoiseach. Initially, I assumed that someone in Ireland would have beaten me to it, but a quick Amazon search showed that no one had.
In recent years, I had become a little bit obsessive about learning more about Irish history and contemporary politics. It had always been a mystery to me that people in Britain know comparatively little about their nearest neighbour, despite a shared history and language. I remember watching the RTE drama Rebellion a few years ago and thinking about the fact that the Easter Rising and the War of Independence did not feature in the core history curriculum in UK schools.
From then on, I started reading more about the history of Britain and Ireland. I tried to buy autobiographies of leading Irish politicians. That proved to be more difficult than I thought. In Britain, it is almost a constitutional duty for ex-Prime Ministers to write their memoirs. In Ireland, only Garret FitzGerald, Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern and now Leo Varadkar have put pen to paper.
I will also be honest and admit that I barely knew anything about several of the 16 Taoisigh (pronounced Teeshig, the plural of Taoiseach), but then again I knew nothing about some of the earlier British Prime Ministers before embarking on recruiting authors for that book.
My agent tried to find a publisher for the book in Ireland, but not a single Irish publisher was interested. I was astonished. Was it because I was a Brit, with no immediate links to Ireland? If so, they were too polite to say. I don’t give up that easily, though. I then decided to launch a podcast called The Irish Taoiseach (still available from wherever you get
your podcasts) and set about contacting potential interviewees for the 16 episodes. They included a Senator, several biographers of Taoisigh and political journalists. The interviews were very conversational and lasted between 30 and 90 minutes. The episodes were recorded and released in 2023 to some excellent reviews.
It was then that I met the then commissioning editor for Swift Press, George Owers, who instantly saw the potential for the book. We agreed terms very quickly, and this book is the result. I wanted this book to appeal to the general reader and asked the contributors to write in an accessible manner and to avoid the usual academic niceties, such as footnotes. Each author was encouraged to be opinionated while outlining the personal and political lives of the Taoiseach they were writing about.
THE TAOISEACH is published in Ireland and the UK this Thursday (23 October) and I will be travelling to Dublin a week later to spend five days doing media interviews on the book and speaking at the booklaunch at Hodges Figgis bookshop on the evening of Tuesday 4 November. A London launch follows the next day at the Irish embassy in London.
If, like me, your knowledge of recent Irish political history is/was a bit scant, I hope by reading this book, you will feel better informed.
Order a personally signed copy of the book HERE.