Commissioning

A Quick Link | Dublin Opinion » Paddy Moran Commemoration Programme – 8 to 14 March 2011

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

Executed For Ireland: The Patrick Moran Story was one of the titles I commissioned while at Mercier, an excellent book and an fascinating topic, sounds like an interesting series of events:

Monday 14th March 2011 (The anniversary of execution)

7.00p.m. Mass in the Dun Laoghaire Club premises, 3 Eblana Avenue, Dun laoghaire. Celebrant: Monsignor Dan O’Connor PP, Dun Laoghaire.

8.00p.m. LECTURES on the life and times of Patrick Moran, Dun Laoghaire Club, 3 Eblana Avenue, Dub Laoghaire.

SPEAKERS: May Moran, author of Executed for Ireland and niece of Paddy Moran; Padraig Yeates, author of Lockout: Dublin 1913 and forthcoming A City in Wartime: Dublin 1914-1918.

Chairman: John Douglas, General Secretary, MANDATE, trade union.

via Dublin Opinion » Blog Archive » Paddy Moran Commemoration Programme – 8 to 14 March 2011.

For more on May Moran, the author of the book, check out this audio clip!

 

Commissioning For The Irish Story

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

Last year I launched a niche Irish History site, The Irish Story. The idea was to create a vibrant site where people could discuss Irish history in an intelligent and interesting way.

I also commissioned five titles and have published each of these as Kindle ebooks and iOS Apps. It seems to have worked pretty well. The titles are each between 10 and 15,000 words each with a detailed timeline of events surrounding the particular focus.

The central focus of the website is the free material that gets posted weekly by a variety of contributors.

There are now over 100 posts on the site of varying length from a few lines to full-length essays, all free. Many of them feature exclusive audio interviews with scholars too, brought to you by the excellent John Dorney who also penned three of the first five books, and who is, in my view one of the most interesting young writers of Irish History.

Based on the success of the site (which is slow but steady) and of the first group of titles I’ve decided to commission a fresh batch of books and this series is to focus more on individuals (though if anyone has ideas for an event based title, I would welcome it too). I created an initial list of targets for 2011 commissioning, it’s here. Have a look at it and if any of them appeal to you, drop me a line and we can discuss the project.

I’ve already added two biographies with this batch, Kaye Jones will be writing two titles from the list in 2011.

So please, get in touch if you are interested, I would love to hear from you.
Eoin (Eoin AT eoinpurcell.com)

Some Notes
1) There are no advances for writing these books, however royalties for the digital editions start at 35% of Net Receipts and go up from there.

2) While many of the titles will be made available through Print On Demand avenues, I cannot guarantee this for ALL titles.

Things I Like | January, February, March, March, March – The Irish Times

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

I’ve mentioned Blood & Thunder on this site before, it was one of the commissions I made at mercier Press. Well it got a full review this weekend from The Irish Times. And a favourable one at that!

Loyalists tend to be cautious about opening up to journalists, but the former Castlederg bandmaster and former Ulster Unionist assembly member Derek Hussey paved the way for MacDonald to get to know the band and its workings. But he said pointedly to MacDonald, “Pity it’s a Taig who’ll be [writing the book]”, a warning against any stitch-up – again a long-standing fear among many loyalists when dealing with the fourth estate.

But it’s the generous and different-footed perspective that makes this book. With objectivity, perception and a strong degree of empathy MacDonald tells the story of the band, interweaving through the narrative the political, religious, cultural and social impulses that drive its members and in a broader sense drive unionism, loyalism and Protestantism.

via January, February, March, March, March – The Irish Times – Sat, Sep 18, 2010.

Things I Like | Liffey Ships and Shipbuilding – Pat Sweeney | The Irish Catholic

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

Nice review in The Irish Catholic for Pat Sweeney’s Liffey Ships & Ship Building, one of my commissions while at Mercier Press.

The book is not only the result of very detailed archive research, it shows too the benefit of Pat Sweeney’s skills as a professional photographer in recording so many of the ships while they were still sea-going.

Attractively produced, this is not just a book for the enthusiast, but for anyone at all interested, not just in Dublin’s past, but in a much neglected aspect of our national history.

Over the last few months I have heard three different Government ministers, including Mr Cowen, extolling the importance of ”heritage” to tourism and the creation of those all important ”bed-nights” around which our economy seems to spins.

The ship builders chronicled in these pages are part of that heritage, part of the heritage which the Maritime Institute of Ireland museum was set up to foster, but which central funding has neglected. Let us hope that Pat Sweeny’s excellent book will be a foundation on which a new future for Ireland’s total maritime heritage may be built.

via Books: Liffey Ships and Shipbuilding – Pat Sweeney | The Irish Catholic – Ireland’s biggest and best-selling Catholic newspaper since 1888.

Things I Like | The cabbage plot rebels | Irish Examiner

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

What a week for books I’ve commissioned it is turning out to be! Laurence Fenton’s The Young Ireland Rebellion and Limerick was featured in the Irish Examiner at the weekend. I’m delighted, it’s a fine book on a fascinating topic:

LAURENCE FENTON has written a tantalising introduction to the events leading to the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848.

The author’s goal was to “explore the manner in which the men and women of Limerick reacted to the tumultuous year of revolutions”.

via The cabbage plot rebels | Irish Examiner.