From the Horse's Mouth

About the Book

In the Autumn of 1810, Paudie Mulhare brewed up a storm that would religiously change the course of one town's folklore. In 1993, it was back in the headlines, when Sean 'The Beast' Talbot led the inmates of Meadowvale Prison onto the rooftops, in one of the bloodiest riots in Irish penal history. In its wake, three prison officers lay dead, and the lives of their colleagues would be, forever, blackened by the loss.

From The Horses Mouth picks up their story in the years after the riot. Set over one week, it tells the tale of the great Dinny O Brien, as he prepares to retire from the service, of Chief Officer Augustine Mulcahy, who finally faces up to the one person that he has feared all his life... himself, of the alcoholic Doc Grady, who has run to standstill, and of Jean Cooke, the one-time prostitute, who must venture out to the edge to bring Doc back. There's the retired American Army General, Bradford Shaw, who is searching for roots older than Meadowvale itself, and there's Nora Hegarty, who must strip her son of his one great love in the hope of saving hers.

It is a week when the past comes crashing into the present, the week when Meadowvale is, once again, ready to blow, the week when Sean Talbot comes home. From The Horses Mouth is a funny, bawdy, bittersweet insight into the world of the warder... it is a jailer's tale. Welcome to Meadowvale - Home of the Lord.

About the Author

Bill Bradshaw was born in the backseat of a Fiat motorcar on the 7th of November 1966. He grew up in the tumbleweed town of Rathkeale in County Limerick, and headed out into the world to find his fame and fortune in 1986. Spectacularly unsuccessful, he returned to Ireland in September 1989, and found a friend in Dublin. In an act of pure charity, Terri married him 1994, and he has two great kids that see past his shortcomings. He has been a prison officer in Mountjoy Jail since 1997, and served two years as a union representative on the Prison Officers' Association. He is prone to exaggeration and has problems with his weight. From the Horse's Mouth: A Jailer's Tale is his first novel.