Joe O'Shea is a journalist and broadcaster, originally from Cork but living and working in Dublin. He has been writing for a range of national newspapers and broadcast media since he was 19-years-of age, first as a news reporter and then as a feature writer and columnist. He has also devised and presented TV programmes. Joe has had a passion for history from a very young age. However, being raised on the stories of the great saints, missionaries, freedom fighters and politicians of the Irish diaspora, he was always fascinated by the dark side of Irish history, the Irish men and women who didn't cover themselves in glory, the thieves, traitors, pirates, pimps, mercenaries, killers, slavers and madmen. In researching this book, he has discovered the forgotten stories of the inglorious Irish who laid waste to empires, transported countless thousands (including, in some cases, their own countrymen) into slavery and indulged in every vice and debased, evil impulse known to man. And he is a little envious.