Gabriel Byrne's Walking With Ghosts, a far cry from the usual ghost-written, humble-bragging of great actors, is destined to be a classic. Slow to judge others, he does not spare himself for what he sees as his failure to connect with those he loved most.

But this memoir is not all dark nights of the soul. Those looking for cameos of his movie life will not be disappointed.

On first reading, Byrne's memoir seems to flow along because it's structured like a screenplay - short scenes, cuts and dissolves. But it really flows because Byrne is as good a writer as he is an actor.

Anne Harris, then editor of IMAGE magazine, spotted that back in 1984 when she commissioned him to write his first major published piece, 'My Lost Weekend in Vienna with Richard Burton'.

A Memoir from Gabriel Byrne Listen 32 min Actor Gabriel Byrne joins us to discuss his acclaimed memoir, Walking With Ghosts, about his childhood growing up on the outskirts of Dublin, his brief. Gabriel Byrne is a Hollywood leading man that many know from the blockbuster films Miller’s Crossing and The Usual Suspects. Byrne has also starred in more than 80 films, television series, and acclaimed Broadway performances. Now he’s added author to that resume. Celebrity memoirs are not uncommon, but Byrne’s is uncommonly well written. A very moving memoir, beautifully written and honestly told. This book will linger long after you have read the last page. Gabriel Byrne understands how courageous an act it is to tell the truth of one’s life. He is an inspiration to the reader. Gabriel Byrne's Walking With Ghosts, a far cry from the usual ghost-written, humble-bragging of great actors, is destined to be a classic. Slow to judge others, he does not spare himself for what. 'The allure of Gabriel Byrne's memoir is that it persuasively humanizes what it is to be a big deal movie star. Byrne is wonderfully without cant or bluster or phony humility. Instead he leads with felicity, candor, humor and empathy. In the end, he seems to be somebody you'd be glad to know.'

'Even now I can still recall the besotted Burton called Elizabeth Taylor 'ET', and although his wife Sally Burton was on the set of [the TV mini-series] Wagner, he still phoned Taylor every night.'

Apart from his good writing, the other reason Byrne's memories will not fade have to do with his character.

To explain why, I must share my early memory of him.

The first time I met Byrne was in 1975, long before he got his first break. He was walking down the South Circular Road with Áine O'Connor with whom I worked in RTÉ. We hit it off from the start. All three of us were good mimics so our days were filled with drink and mocking the great and not so good.

Inevitably, I long ago lost contact with that Gabriel Byrne as he steadily disappeared beneath a growing heap of well-deserved honours.

But three traits I cherished back in 1975 drive his mature memoir.

First, he was profoundly shy; but it was not a social shyness but a spiritual safeguard. As a successful actor, he was always afraid of being ambushed by fame.

Told in Cannes that The Usual Suspects will make him a star, he retreats to bed in his hotel room, a reaction that is not a clinical depression but a deeper distrust of the tinsel of this world.

Second, he was gentle - but the other side of that coin was an anger against any act of cruelty. Byrne could not bear to watch the weak being bullied. One of the most powerful scenes in his memoir is the persecution of a boy called Owl that will long linger in the memory.

Finally, he had an almost Jewish feel for black comedy, and in his memoir it is seldom far away.

We know from The Late Late Show that Byrne tells a good anecdote. But here they become something greater.

There is always a point to a Byrne anecdote. But the point is never to build Byrne up at someone else's expense but to show their subjects at their best.

In one hilariously redemptive story, he recounts meeting Laurence Olivier in a corridor, and unable to think of anything to say, asks the famous actor for the time. Not surprisingly Olivier brushed him off, but hours later he made amends with a gracious note and good advice.

In sum, this memoir shows Byrne's youthful shyness has lightened into a laconic self-deprecation, that his revulsion against cruelty is still a ruling passion, and that his dark humour is always to hand.

But there is always a sense of time past, time lost. We feel it most when he's writing about the heroine of his memoir. But those hoping for romantic revelations will search in vain.

Because the woman who mattered most in Gabriel Byrne's life was his mother, Eileen Gannon, for whom this whole book is an elegy, as it is an elegy for all Irish women of her generation, who never fulfilled their potential.

Byrne blames the Catholic church for their social and creative repression. Yet he is merciful to the Church's individual sinners. One day, he tracks down and calls up the priest who abused him at boarding school with retribution in mind. Finding himself talking to a forgetful old man, he puts the phone down.

Byrne doesn't do the politically correct thing by 'forgiving' the priest. He lets that empty life end as it will. Despite his role as a therapist in the television series In Treatment, Byrne is less a Freudian than a Byrneian - someone who has learned a lot about human nature from his own life.

His rejection of revenge on the priest is almost as moving as his harrowing account of the death of his mother. The priest didn't get the harsh justice he deserved. His mother did not get the good life she deserved.

What makes Gabriel Byrne a great writer is that he knows that whether we are wicked or good, few of us get what we deserve.

MEMOIR

Walking with Ghosts

Gabriel Byrne, Picador, €14.99

Summary:

Gabriel Byrne Memoir

A highly anticipated memoir by Gabriel Byrne, the award-winning star of over eighty films, Walking with Ghosts is an exquisite portrait of an Irish childhood and a remarkable journey to Hollywood and Broadway success As a young boy growing up on the outskirts of Dublin, Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills near his home, at the edge of a rapidly encroaching city. Born to working-class parents and the eldest of six children, he harbored a childhood desire to become a priest. When he was eleven years old, Byrne found himself crossing the Irish Sea to join a seminary in England. Four years later, Byrne had been expelled and he quickly returned to his native city. There he took odd jobs as a messenger boy and a factory laborer to get by. In his spare time, he visited the cinema where he could be alone and yet part of a crowd. It was here that he could begin to imagine a life beyond the grey world of sixties Ireland. He reveled in the theater and poetry of Dublin's streets, populated by characters as eccentric and remarkable as any in fiction, those who spin a yarn with acuity and wit. It was a friend who suggested Byrne join an amateur drama group, a decision that would change his life forever and launch him on an extraordinary forty-year career in film and theater. Moving between sensual recollections of childhood in a now almost vanished Ireland and reflections on stardom in Hollywood and on Broadway, Byrne also courageously recounts his battle with addiction and the ambivalence of fame. Walking with Ghosts is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking as well as a lyrical homage to the people and landscapes that ultimately shape our destinies.

Gabriel Byrne Book