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Speaking My Mind
  • Published: 11 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781844886937
  • Imprint: Penguin Ireland
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $65.00
Categories:

Speaking My Mind

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Revealing story of his life in politics from an unlikely and singular Irish prime minister

Leo Varadkar shares his fascinating experience as Irish prime minister at a time of much change and turbulence, in this remarkably honest memoir.

Leo Varadkar was an unlikely Taoiseach – the youngest on taking office in 2017, the first Taoiseach to be gay, and the first person of colour to be Taoiseach.

Equally unlikely was his decision to bow out of politics in his mid-forties. Now, liberated from the constraints of office, he tells his fascinating story with characteristic courage and candour, and provides a unique insight into the formation and evolution of a senior politician.

In Speaking My Mind Leo Varadkar shares his pride in helping to bring about transformational changes, such as marriage equality. He describes experiences that only a prime minister could have – speaking frankly to Pope Francis on the legacy of church abuses, connecting with Barack Obama about both being the ‘tall, dark guy with the funny name’, navigating challenges such as the pandemic and the fallout from Brexit. And he writes honestly about the costs that go with the immense privilege of holding high office.

Speaking My Mind is a revealing, intimate and important memoir from a singular public figure.
  • Published: 11 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781844886937
  • Imprint: Penguin Ireland
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $65.00
Categories:

Praise for Speaking My Mind

Brings to life some of the behind-the-scenes moments of what has been a transformative period in Irish and global politics

Mary Regan, Sunday Independent

A lively and easy read and can help in future examinations of a very fast-changing Ireland

John Downing, Irish Independent

A great read ... fascinating insights

Brendan O’Connor, RTÉ Radio 1

Refreshingly honest

The Guardian

Whatever your views on Varadkar and his political legacy, you'll be gripped by these stories

Sunday Independent

Candid … engagingly honest

Financial Times

He is easy, cosmopolitan company, judiciously bitchy, but never cruel. I own a lot of books written by and about Irish politicians and this one is the most human in its telling

The Times

There is gossip, revealing text exchanges and entertaining titbits … the reader gets a good sense of the pressures of serving as taoiseach

Diarmaid Ferriter, Irish Times

Highly illuminating on the relationship between self-suppression and the reactionary social conservatism he once espoused . . . There’s real life and real insight in these passages

The Observer

Fascinating insights into his own thinking and the behaviour of others

Irish Daily Mail

A fluid account . . . engaging

Irish Examiner

A shrewd and witty observer of those he comes across

The Telegraph

Really fascinating

Joe Brolly, Free State Podcast

No Irishman since Éamon de Valera has confounded the British more

New Statesman
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