Product details
- ISBN 9781399734714
- Weight: 237g
- Dimensions: 126 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 28 May 2026
- Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland
- Publication City/Country: IE
- Product Form: Paperback
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'A BOOK THAT ENTERS THE GAA CANON' THE 42
'A MAGICAL-MYSTERY TOUR OF A GAA SEASON' IRISH INDEPENDENT
'A cracking read ... a championship season as redemption song.' MICHAEL CLIFFORD
"All the tension of a tight knockout encounter ... one of the books of the year." MIKE McCORMACK
Twenty‑one years on from his bestselling The Road to Croker, sportswriter Eamonn Sweeney set out to follow the All‑Ireland championships around the country once again. But there was one problem. To make the journey, he would have to confront a secret fear that had quietly shaped his life.
On the pitch, The Last Ditch captures the drama of a hurling season for the ages and a football championship that tested even the most loyal supporters - a landscape of unlikely triumphs, renaissances, shocks, cliffhangers and heartbreak.
Off the field, it becomes something deeper: one man's reckoning with middle age, masculinity and a crippling travel phobia that for two decades had dictated the span of his quiet, rural existence. As he moves through towns, terraces and conversations, Sweeney discovers not just the unifying spirit of the GAA, but the possibility of reclaiming a life he thought he'd lost.
Both an unforgettable sporting odyssey and a profoundly human memoir, The Last Ditch is a testament to how in Ireland, when all else fails, the GAA brings us home again.
Eamonn Sweeney writes the Hold The Back Page column for the Sunday Independent and a Monday sports column for the Irish Independent. He is a former Irish Sports Columnist of the year and has written seven books, including the novels Waiting for the Healer and The Photograph and the sports books, There's Only One Red Army and The Road to Croker.
Born in Sligo in 1968, he lives in Skibbereen and is the father of three daughters. He is the owner of a dog and a bearded dragon and headed three goals during his otherwise undistinguished under-age gaelic football career. All the other personal stuff is in the book.
