The Forgettables: Remarkable Irish People (and Animals) You’ve Never Heard Of

by Myles Dungan, Alan Dunne (Illustrator)

You won’t find Mary Robinson, Ernest Shackleton or Rory McIlroy in this volume - they are among the unforgettables who have shaped Irish life. Instead, meet some fascinating, Irish people (and animals), who have advanced (or set back) the cause of everything from astronomy to zoology.

There’s the honorable but underappreciated Valentine Greatrakes, a 17th-century witchfinder and healer from Waterford. There’s also the bygone baddie Miler McGrath, possibly the worst bishop in the history of religion who appears to have been a Franciscan monk, a Catholic bishop AND a bishop of the Church of Ireland at more or less the same time. Then there’s Paddy the Pigeon, the WW2 veteran who brought the news of the Allied D-Day success to England.

Be inspired by their stories and maybe one day, you can be forgettable too!

Genres: Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

Published December 18, 2023

About the author

Dr. Myles Dungan (PhD Trinity College, Dublin, 2012) is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster and is also Programme Director of the annual Hinterland Festival in Kells, Co. Meath. He currently presents the weekly RTE Radio 1 programme The History Show, writes a weekly column (‘Fake Histories’) for the RTE Radio 1 Drivetime programme, and has worked as presenter of various RTE radio and TV programmes for the last thirty years (Five Seven Live, Rattlebag, Prime Time). He is an Adjunct Lecturer in the UCD School of History and is the recipient of two Fulbright Awards. He has taught Irish history in UCD, Trinity College and the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than a dozen books on Irish and American history (including Irish Voices from the Great War, How the Irish Won the West and Mr. Parnell’s Rottweiler). In 1985 he co-founded the Dublin Film Festival with film critic Michael Dwyer. He is now masquerading as a novelist

Reviews

[Kayla Zabcia]

DNF; page 31

I didn't like the overly casual tone the author took with the audience (i.e. "OK, so I made that last one up!" and "So, what's a guy to do? Leave her out?"). Probably best read to children who need that sort of tone to be interested in history. A shame, because it could've been quite interesting if it wasn't so annoying!