Books published by Merrion Press

This is the extraordinary story of an audacious fight for souls on famine ravaged Achill Island in the nineteenth century. Religious ferment swept Ireland in the early 1800s and evangelical Protestant clergyman Edward Nangle set out to lift the destitute people of Achill out of degradation and idolatry through his Achill Mission Colony. The fury of the island elements, the devastation of famine, and Nangle's own volatile temperament all threatened the project's survival. In the years of the Great Famine the ugly charge of 'souperism', offering food and material benefits in return for religious conversion, tainted the Achill Mission's work. John MacHale, powerful Archbishop of Tuam, spearheaded the Catholic Church's fightback against Nangle's Protestant colony, with the two clergymen unleashing fierce passions while spewing vitriol and polemic from pen and pulpit. Did Edward Nangle and the Achill Mission Colony save hundreds from certain death, or did they shamefully exploit a vulnerable people for religious conversion? This dramatic tale of the Achill Mission Colony exposes the fault-lines of religion, society and politics in nineteenth century Ireland, and continues to excite controversy and division to this day.

UVF: Behind the Mask is the gripping new history of the Ulster Volunteer Force from its post-1965 incarnation to the present day. Aaron Edwards blends rigorous research with unprecedented access to leading members of the UVF to unearth the startling inner-workings of one of the world's oldest and most ruthless paramilitary groups.Through interviews with high-profile UVF leaders, such as Billy Mitchell, David Ervine, Billy Wright, Billy Hutchinson and Gary Haggarty, as well as their loyalist rivals including Johnny Adair, Edwards reveals the grisly details behind their sadistic torture and murder techniques and their litany of high-profile atrocities: McGurk's Bar, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the Miami Showband massacre and the Shankill Butchers' serial-killing spree, amongst others. Edwards' life and career has led him to the centre of the UVF's long, dark underbelly; in this defining work he offers a comprehensive and authoritative study of an armed group that continues to play a pivotal role in Northern Irish society.