He was the garrulous and flamboyant drinking companion of James Joyce, providing the character of Buck Mulligan for Ulysses, the exuberant and ... Read moremocking wit who delighted George Moore, and a friend and inspiration to the man who was high priest of the Irish literary renaissance, William Butler Yeats. From his boisterous student days, through the time of the Irish Civil War, and in all his years as a successful surgeon and unrivalled conversationalist, Gogarty embodied the life of Dublin during one of its richest and most turbulent periods.

Gogarty himself appointed Ulick O'Connor to be his biographer. O'Connor spent six years researching published and unpublished material, as well as collecting the reminiscences of Gogarty's many friends. The result is a surprising and intimate portrait of a great Irishman and a stirring period of Irish history.