Ballagh’s self-portrait is perceptive, provocative and sometimes chaotic

Memoir: A Reluctant Memoir, By Robert Ballagh, Head of Zeus, €30

How did Robert Ballagh become Ireland’s most successful pop artist in the late 1960s? According to the Dubliner’s own modest self-assessment: “I had little going for me other than reasonable manual dexterity and attitude – bags of attitude.” Half a century later, his contrarian spirit still rages in a memoir as intelligent, provocative and waspish as the man himself.

Somewhat alarmingly, Ballagh ...