
Outsider
A Memoir of Survival, Family Secrets and the Search to Belong
Paul Cullen(Author)
Hachette Books Ireland (Publisher)
Published on 19. February 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-1-3997-5586-3 (ISBN)
Description
'A remarkable story, a real page-turner' JOE DUFFY
'Powerfully written ... a gripping narrative' FINTAN O'TOOLE
The remarkable story of one man's journey from the edge of death to the heart of a hidden past.
Adopted at age three, Paul Cullen always felt like an outsider. After a near-fatal fall from Germany's highest peak in 2017 left him broken - physically and emotionally - he faced a personal reckoning. As he lay injured on the mountain, he knew that if he survived, he could no longer avoid the questions that had haunted him since childhood.
What happened in those missing early years? Who cared for him before his adoption? And why was it so hard to find the truth?
Outsider follows Paul's search for answers, from a mother and baby home in 1960s London to a suburban estate in 1970s Dublin, in a house lit with love but shadowed by a darker truth. As his body heals, he pieces together the fragments of his identity, confronting the silence of a closed adoption system and the emotional legacy of a hidden past.
Courageous and deeply personal, Outsider is a powerful story of survival, belonging and the enduring human need to know where we come from.
'Powerfully written ... a gripping narrative' FINTAN O'TOOLE
The remarkable story of one man's journey from the edge of death to the heart of a hidden past.
Adopted at age three, Paul Cullen always felt like an outsider. After a near-fatal fall from Germany's highest peak in 2017 left him broken - physically and emotionally - he faced a personal reckoning. As he lay injured on the mountain, he knew that if he survived, he could no longer avoid the questions that had haunted him since childhood.
What happened in those missing early years? Who cared for him before his adoption? And why was it so hard to find the truth?
Outsider follows Paul's search for answers, from a mother and baby home in 1960s London to a suburban estate in 1970s Dublin, in a house lit with love but shadowed by a darker truth. As his body heals, he pieces together the fragments of his identity, confronting the silence of a closed adoption system and the emotional legacy of a hidden past.
Courageous and deeply personal, Outsider is a powerful story of survival, belonging and the enduring human need to know where we come from.
Reviews / Votes
Written with extraordinary verbal and emotional precision, Outsider is a potent reminder that in Ireland the personal and the public are inextricably intertwined. In telling his own story of adoption, loss and discovery Paul Cullen also tells the inner history of a society in which a child like him could be labelled as illegitimate. While the truths of the past can never be fully revealed, the truthfulness of Cullen's account shines through his gripping narrative * Fintan O'Toole * Paul Cullen's Outsider is a beautifully written story of gradual discovery about his origins before his adoption, particularly the crucial early years of his life, and the people who played the most important part in them. Having looked at all the evidence, he calmly and rationally concludes that his was a forced adoption, contrary to the findings of the deeply flawed Mother and Baby Homes report.This book is a very important contribution to the growing literature on Ireland's unholy alliance between church and state to interfere in fundamental relationships with life-changing effects on those involved. * Catriona Crowe * This true story reads like a thriller, with all the twists turns and ultimate redemption of a remarkable story, a real page turner * Joe Duffy * Moving ... a painfully honest memoir * Irish Examiner * Moving and compelling * Irish Times *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Castleknock
Ireland
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
434 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3997-5586-3 (9781399755863)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2026
Hachette Books Ireland
€10.99
Available for download
Person
Paul Cullen is a journalist and the author of three acclaimed non-fiction books. Born in London and raised in Dublin, he studied engineering at Trinity College Dublin before spending five years in Switzerland. On returning to Ireland, he trained in journalism at Dublin City University and joined The Irish Times in 1993, where he reported on health, politics, consumer affairs, international development, and education over a distinguished three-decade career.
He is the author of the best-selling With a Little Help from My Friends, which investigated corruption uncovered by the planning tribunal, and has won numerous awards for his work - including Irish News Journalist of the Year in 2023. Outsider: A Memoir of Survival, Family Secrets and the Search to Belong, was published by Hachette Ireland in February 2026, and will be followed in October the same year by his ground-breaking expose of the Irish national children's hospital scandal Billion Dollar Baby.
Paul Cullen lives in Dublin with his wife and four children.
He is the author of the best-selling With a Little Help from My Friends, which investigated corruption uncovered by the planning tribunal, and has won numerous awards for his work - including Irish News Journalist of the Year in 2023. Outsider: A Memoir of Survival, Family Secrets and the Search to Belong, was published by Hachette Ireland in February 2026, and will be followed in October the same year by his ground-breaking expose of the Irish national children's hospital scandal Billion Dollar Baby.
Paul Cullen lives in Dublin with his wife and four children.