From war to revolution, famine to emigration, The Darkness Echoing travels around Ireland bringing its dark past to life

The Darkness Echoing isn’t a guide book. There are no suggested itineraries, suggestions of places to stay, or star ratings given. But I hope that reading the book might prompt some people to head out the door and explore the museums and heritage sites, the memorials and monuments and perhaps to look at our landscape and buildings with a more questioning eye.

I visited over 200 sites across the country while researching and writing this book and there are hundreds of others still to be visited. For anyone seeing some visual inspiration click on the images below to see a selection of photographs relating to the sites mentioned in each chapter of the book. The book can be bought here or at any of the excellent independent book shops around the country.

(A word of warning - some images on the page relating to the Death chapter are of dead bodies & skeletons)

The Darkness Echoing has been highly praised by reviewers. The book was an Irish Times non-fiction bestseller (and reprinted within weeks of publication) and has been widely praised by historians, museum professionals and in the media. In Irish Historical Studies Sinéad McCoole noted that ‘The Darkness Echoing is not just a critique of Ireland’s dark tourism but also a contemporary commentary on a range of social, economic and political issues’ while in Museums Ireland Emma McAlistair concluded that the book ‘makes a valuable contribution to Irish History and Museum Studies scholarship through its meticulous historical research… It is engaging, endearing and warm while being critical, analytical and informative; a rare find in academic history books’. The book was also described by John Gibney in History Ireland as 'provocative without being polemical. O’Brien is unafraid to offer both laconic asides and trenchant critiques, but as she writes as both a practitioner of public history and an academic her book offers historical complexity without hectoring… She has written as significant a commentary on Irish history as any that has appeared in recent years’ while Ryan Tubridy regarded the book as ‘dark, mischievous... enlightening and educating...my history book of the year.’ You can find other reviews of the book here: The Darkness Echoing Reviews

Below is a short reading from The Darkness Echoing. Other interviews about the book are available here: The Darkness Echoing Interviews