Listen free for 30 days
-
The Glorious Guinness Girls
- Narrated by: Roisin Rankin
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
People who bought this also bought...
-
Strange Flowers
- By: Donal Ryan
- Narrated by: Donna Anita Nikolaisen
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1973, Moll Gladney goes missing from the Tipperary hillside where she was born. Slowly, her parents - Paddy and Kit - begin to accept that she’s gone forever. But she returns, changed, and with a few surprises for her family and neighbours. Nothing is ever the same again for the Gladneys, who learn that fate cares little for duty, that life rarely conforms to expectation, that God can’t be relied upon to heed any prayer. A story of exile and return, of loss and discovery, of retreat from grief and the saving power of love.
-
-
Wonderful
- By ncp on 27-09-20
-
After the Silence
- By: Louise O'Neill
- Narrated by: Amy Molloy
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the day of Henry and Keelin Kinsella's wild party at their big house, a violent storm engulfed the island of Inisrun, cutting it off from the mainland. When morning broke, Nessa Crowley's lifeless body lay in the garden, her last breath silenced by the music and the thunder. The killer couldn't have escaped Inisrun, but no-one was charged with the murder. The mystery that surrounded the death of Nessa remained hidden. But the islanders knew who to blame for the crime that changed them forever.
-
-
Masterpiece
- By janice c. on 07-10-20
-
Home Stretch
- By: Graham Norton
- Narrated by: Graham Norton
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1987, and a small Irish community is preparing for the wedding of two of its young inhabitants. They're barely adults, not so long out of school and still part of the same set of friends they've grown up with. As the friends head home from the beach that last night before the wedding, there is a car accident. Three survive the crash, but three are killed. And the reverberations are felt throughout the small town.
-
-
Exceptional
- By Anonymous User on 14-10-20
-
Snow
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Stanley Townsend
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the discovery of the body of a well-loved parish priest at Ballyglass House - the Co Wexford family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family - Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called in from Dublin to investigate. Facing obstruction from all angles, Strafford is determined to identify the murderer. But, as the snow continues to fall over this ever expanding mystery, the people of Ballyglass are equally determined to keep their secrets.
-
-
Nothing new or interesting here.
- By the typist on 02-10-20
-
Beyond the Tape
- By: Marie Cassidy
- Narrated by: Marie Cassidy
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marie Cassidy was Ireland's state pathologist from 2004 until 2018. During that time, she was involved in many high-profile cases, including the Stardust exhumation and the deaths of Siobhan Kearney, Rachel O'Reilly, Robert Holohan and Tom O'Gorman. In Beyond the Tape, she invites us into the world of forensic pathology and shares her remarkable personal journey, from working-class Glasgow to becoming Ireland's head pathologist.
-
-
Interesting listen
- By Roo on 20-10-20
-
OK, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea
- By: Patrick Freyne
- Narrated by: Patrick Freyne
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick Freyne has tried a lot of stupid ideas in his life. Now, in his scintillating debut, he is here to tell you about them: like the time (aged five) he opened a gate and let a horse out of its field, just to see what would happen; or the time (aged 19) he jumped out of a plane for charity, even though he didn't much care about the charity and was sure he'd end up dead; or the time (aged old enough to know better) he used a magazine as a funnel for fuel when the petrol cap on his band's van broke.
-
-
Be wary of listening in public
- By Sue murphy on 12-10-20
-
Strange Flowers
- By: Donal Ryan
- Narrated by: Donna Anita Nikolaisen
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1973, Moll Gladney goes missing from the Tipperary hillside where she was born. Slowly, her parents - Paddy and Kit - begin to accept that she’s gone forever. But she returns, changed, and with a few surprises for her family and neighbours. Nothing is ever the same again for the Gladneys, who learn that fate cares little for duty, that life rarely conforms to expectation, that God can’t be relied upon to heed any prayer. A story of exile and return, of loss and discovery, of retreat from grief and the saving power of love.
-
-
Wonderful
- By ncp on 27-09-20
-
After the Silence
- By: Louise O'Neill
- Narrated by: Amy Molloy
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the day of Henry and Keelin Kinsella's wild party at their big house, a violent storm engulfed the island of Inisrun, cutting it off from the mainland. When morning broke, Nessa Crowley's lifeless body lay in the garden, her last breath silenced by the music and the thunder. The killer couldn't have escaped Inisrun, but no-one was charged with the murder. The mystery that surrounded the death of Nessa remained hidden. But the islanders knew who to blame for the crime that changed them forever.
-
-
Masterpiece
- By janice c. on 07-10-20
-
Home Stretch
- By: Graham Norton
- Narrated by: Graham Norton
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1987, and a small Irish community is preparing for the wedding of two of its young inhabitants. They're barely adults, not so long out of school and still part of the same set of friends they've grown up with. As the friends head home from the beach that last night before the wedding, there is a car accident. Three survive the crash, but three are killed. And the reverberations are felt throughout the small town.
-
-
Exceptional
- By Anonymous User on 14-10-20
-
Snow
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Stanley Townsend
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the discovery of the body of a well-loved parish priest at Ballyglass House - the Co Wexford family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family - Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called in from Dublin to investigate. Facing obstruction from all angles, Strafford is determined to identify the murderer. But, as the snow continues to fall over this ever expanding mystery, the people of Ballyglass are equally determined to keep their secrets.
-
-
Nothing new or interesting here.
- By the typist on 02-10-20
-
Beyond the Tape
- By: Marie Cassidy
- Narrated by: Marie Cassidy
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marie Cassidy was Ireland's state pathologist from 2004 until 2018. During that time, she was involved in many high-profile cases, including the Stardust exhumation and the deaths of Siobhan Kearney, Rachel O'Reilly, Robert Holohan and Tom O'Gorman. In Beyond the Tape, she invites us into the world of forensic pathology and shares her remarkable personal journey, from working-class Glasgow to becoming Ireland's head pathologist.
-
-
Interesting listen
- By Roo on 20-10-20
-
OK, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea
- By: Patrick Freyne
- Narrated by: Patrick Freyne
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick Freyne has tried a lot of stupid ideas in his life. Now, in his scintillating debut, he is here to tell you about them: like the time (aged five) he opened a gate and let a horse out of its field, just to see what would happen; or the time (aged 19) he jumped out of a plane for charity, even though he didn't much care about the charity and was sure he'd end up dead; or the time (aged old enough to know better) he used a magazine as a funnel for fuel when the petrol cap on his band's van broke.
-
-
Be wary of listening in public
- By Sue murphy on 12-10-20
-
The Searcher
- By: Tana French
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a remote Irish village would be the perfect escape. After 25 years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But then a local kid comes looking for his help. His brother has gone missing and no one, least of all the police, seems to care. Cal wants nothing to do with any kind of investigation, but somehow he can't make himself walk away.
-
-
Haunting
- By bellyanna on 29-11-20
-
The Pull of the Stars
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with an unfamiliar flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By Amazon Customer on 24-07-20
-
Our Little Cruelties
- By: Liz Nugent
- Narrated by: Sam O'Mahony, Stephen Hogan, Paul Hickey, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three brothers are at the funeral. One lies in the coffin. Will, Brian and Luke grow up competing for their mother's love, but she is unable and unwilling to love all of them. As adults, the competition continues. One brother always has what another one wants - status, money, success, a woman, the love of a child, his mother's attention. But maybe there's a chance to even things up. Perhaps with one brother gone there would be more to go around. Which will it be?
-
-
Best ever from Liz Nugent - deliciously gripping!
- By Podenco Fan on 03-04-20
-
Champagne Football
- John Delaney and the Betrayal of Irish Football: The Inside Story
- By: Mark Tighe, Paul Rowan
- Narrated by: Johnny Candon
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of 15 years, John Delaney ran the Football Association of Ireland as his own personal fiefdom. He had his critics, but his power was never seriously challenged until last year, when Mark Tighe and Paul Rowan published a sequence of stories in the Sunday Times containing damaging revelations about his personal compensation and the parlous financial situation of the FAI. Delaney's reputation as a great financial manager was left in tatters. He resigned under pressure, and the FAI was left hoping for a massive bail-out from the Irish taxpayer.
-
-
great book
- By Anonymous User on 20-01-21
-
The Mitford Murders
- The Mitford Murders, Book 1
- By: Jessica Fellowes
- Narrated by: Rachel Atkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lose yourself in the gripping first novel in a new series of Golden Age murder mysteries set amid the lives of the glamorous Mitford sisters. It's 1919, and Louisa Cannon dreams of escaping her life of poverty in London, and most of all her oppressive and dangerous uncle. Louisa's salvation is a position within the Mitford household at Asthall Manor, in the Oxfordshire countryside.
-
-
Lovely, lovely, lovely!!!!
- By cdw on 09-10-17
-
As You Were
- By: Elaine Feeney
- Narrated by: Siobhan O'Kelly
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sinéad Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with a terrifying secret. No-one knows it: not her fellow patients in a failing hospital and certainly not her family. She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie. But she can’t go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future. Across the ward, Margaret Rose is running her chaotic family from her rose-gold Nokia. In the neighbouring bed, Jane, rarely but piercingly lucid, is searching for a decent bra and for someone to listen. Sinéad needs them both.
-
-
Couldn’t return it
- By Mollser on 07-12-20
-
The Governess
- By: Wendy Holden
- Narrated by: Freya Mavor
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marion Crawford was 22 when she became governess to the young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in 1933. A working-class girl with progressive ideas, she had intended to teach children in the Edinburgh slums. Instead, she had a ringside seat at some of the most seismic events of the 20th century. The castles and palaces housed a family frozen in time. But outside the royal gates, poverty and unemployment were breeding unrest in 1930s Britain. Hitler was on the rise in Europe. If royalty was to survive, it must draw closer to the people.
-
-
A book for teenagers
- By Mrs Kay Smele on 24-08-20
-
Dear Edward
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer morning, a flight takes off from New York to Los Angeles. There are 216 passengers aboard: among them a young woman taking a pregnancy test in the airplane toilet; a Wall Street millionaire flirting with the air hostess; an injured soldier returning from Afghanistan; and two beleaguered parents moving across the country with their adolescent sons, bickering over who gets the window seat. When the plane suddenly crashes in a field in Colorado, the younger of these boys, 12-year-old Edward Adler, is the sole survivor.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Lynne on 22-01-20
-
Kiss Myself Goodbye
- The Many Lives of Aunt Munca
- By: Ferdinand Mount
- Narrated by: Paul Blezard
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aunt Munca never told the truth about anything. Calling herself after the mouse in a Beatrix Potter story, she was already a figure of mystery during the childhood of her nephew Ferdinand Mount. Half a century later, a series of startling revelations sets him off on a tortuous quest to find out who this extraordinary millionairess really was. What he discovers is shocking and irretrievably sad, involving multiple deceptions, false identities and abandonments.
-
-
Magnificent family story/detective work
- By Book Groupie on 02-11-20
-
Mayflies
- By: Andrew O'Hagan
- Narrated by: Andrew O'Hagan
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone has a Tully Dawson: the friend who defines your life. In the summer of 1986, in a small Scottish town, James and Tully ignite a brilliant friendship based on music, films and the rebel spirit. With school over and the locked world of their fathers before them, they rush towards the climax of their youth: a magical weekend in Manchester, the epicentre of everything that inspires them in working-class Britain. There, against the greatest soundtrack ever recorded, a vow is made: to go at life differently. Thirty years on, half a life away, the phone rings. Tully has news.
-
-
Oh my word
- By Diane P. on 03-12-20
-
Hamnet
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Daisy Donovan
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.
-
-
Narrator fights writing and wins (sadly)
- By Leaf Green on 20-07-20
-
Never Mind the B#ll*cks, Here's the Science
- By: Luke O'Neill
- Narrated by: Ruairi Conaghan
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fascinating new audiobook from the best-selling author of Humanology, Luke O'Neill explores some of the big human questions and tells us what science has to say about topics such as gender, addiction and euthanasia. With his trademark easy wit and clever pop-culture references, Luke is a serious scientist with an amazing knack of making science accessible. If you are curious about us, this bizarre animal called the human being, this is a book for you.
-
-
Topical science themes
- By K. J. Noyes on 25-11-20
Summary
From London to Ireland in 1920s, a glorious, gripping, moving and richly textured novel which takes us to the heart of the remarkable real-life story of the Guinness Girls.
Love affairs, lies, scandals, secrets....
Aileen. Maureen. Oonagh. The private lives of the Glorious Guinness Girls fascinated a nation. But privilege always has its price....
Granddaughters of the first Earl of Iveagh, the three daughters of Ernest Guinness are glamorous society girls, the toast of Dublin and London. Darlings of the press, with not a care in the world.
But what beautiful ruins lie behind the glass of their privileged worlds? The love affairs, the scandals, the tragedies, the secrets....
Inspired by fascinating real events and a remarkable true story, from the turmoil of Ireland's War of Independence to the brittle glamour of 1920s London, this dramatic, richly textured novel takes us into the heart of a beautiful but often painful hidden world.
If you loved Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes' Belgravia, Paula McLain's The Paris Wife or Therese Anne Fowler's Z Is for Zelda, you will adore The Glorious Guinness Girls.
More from the same
What listeners say about The Glorious Guinness Girls
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- zobo
- 01-10-20
Great narrator, not much of a story
Thought the narrator did an excellent job of capturing the style of talking typical to the twenties era. Enjoyed the book, but came away feeling not much had actually happened, to the point where I wondered if my book had skipped forward and I had missed out a big chunk...🤔 Expected more substance - while there was some focus on the Irish Civil War, it mainly seemed to be descriptions of how the rich whiled away their days in London during the twenties from an outsiders point of view. Enjoyable, but expected more from it considering so much was happening at this time. Have read other books on a similar theme to this such as about the Mitford sisters and that seemed much more interesting.