Rob Doyle was born in Dublin. His first novel is Here Are the Young Men (Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 2014). His fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, Gorse, The Moth, The Penny Dreadful and elsewhere. His work has appeared on RTÉ national radio and the BBC World Service, […]
David Lloyd was born in Dublin in 1955. His collections are Taropatch (Oakland, Jimmy’s House of Knowledge, 1985); Coupures (Dublin, hardPressed Poetry, 1987); Change of State (Berkeley, Cusp Books, 1993); Sill (Los Angeles, Cusp Books, 2006); and Vega (Los Angeles, Mind Made Books, 2009). They are collected as Arc & Sill (Bristol, Shearsman, 2012). As […]
Seán Dunne was born in Waterford in 1956. His poetry is collected as Against the Storm (Mountrath, Dolmen Press in 1985); The Sheltered Nest (Oldcastle, County Meath, The Gallery Press, 1992); Time and the Island: Selected and New Poems (The Gallery Press, 1996); and Collected (The Gallery Press, 2005). He also published The Road to […]
Tom Paulin was born in Leeds in 1949 but grew up in Belfast. His poetry collections include A State Of Justice (London, Faber & Faber, 1977); The Strange Museum (Faber & Faber, 1980); Liberty Tree Faber & Faber, 1983); Fivemiletown, Faber & Faber, 1987); Walking A Line (Faber & Faber 1994); The Wind Dog (Faber […]
Seán Haldane was born in Sussex, England, of an Irish-Scots father and an English-German mother, in 1943. He grew up in Belfast. After university at Oxford and sojourns in Italy and Portugal he spent 25 years in Canada, first as co-publisher with the American poet Marnie Pomeroy at the Ladysmith Press (Quebec), then (having taken […]
Chris Agee was born in 1956 in San Francisco and grew up in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. He attended Harvard University and since 1979 has lived in Ireland. His poetry collections are In the New Hampshire Woods (Dublin, The Dedalus Press, 1992), First Light (The Dedalus Press, 2003) and Next to Nothing (Cambridge, […]
Samuel Beckett was born in Foxrock, Co Dublin in 1906. His fiction includes More Pricks Than Kicks (London, Chatto and Windus, 1934); Murphy (London, G. Routledge, 1938); Molloy (Paris, Les Editions de Minuit 1951); English translation as Molloy by Samuel Beckett and Patrick Bowles. (Paris, Olympia Press, 1955); Malone Meurt (Paris, Les Editions de Minuit […]
John Broderick was born in Athlone in 1924. His novels include The Pilgrimage (London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1961), published in the U.S. as The Chameleons (N.Y. Ivan Obolensky, 1961); The Fugitives (London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1962); Don Juaneen (London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1963); The Waking of Willie Ryan (London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1965); An Apology […]
Hubert Butler was born in Kilkenny in 1900. He is recognized as the most distinctive Irish essayists, writing in the highest traditions of Swift and Shaw. His essays reflect his experiences in pre-war Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Latvia, Russia and China, as well as Ireland. In 1933/34 he translated and adapted Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard […]
Catherine Byron was born in London of an English father and Irish mother in 1947 but grew up in Belfast from 1948. The Fat-Hen Field Hospital: Poems 1985-92 (Bristol, Loxwood Stoneleigh, 1993); Settlements & Samhain (Loxwood Stoneleigh, 1993); The Three Shes, edited and translated into German by Hans Bernhard Schiff, (Dusseldorf 1994, parallel text); and […]
Roz Cowman was born in Cork in 1942. Her collection is The Goose Herd (Salmon Poetry, The Cliffs of Moher, Co Clare, 1989). Her non-fiction includes Our Daily Bread: A History of Barron’s Bakery, with photographs by Arna Run Runarsdottir (Cork, Onstream Publications, 2011). She received the Arlen House/Maxwell House award in 1982, and the […]
Louis de Paor was born in Cork in 1961, and lived in Australia from 1987 to 1996, where he published a number of bi-lingual titles. His collections include Próca Solais is Luatha (Baile Átha Cliath, Coiscéim, 1988), which won the won Duais an Ríordánaigh; 30 Dán (Coiscéim, 1982); Aimsir Bhreicneach/Freckled Weather (Australia, The Leros Press, […]
Gerald Dawe was born in Belfast in 1952. His poetry collections are Sheltering Places (1978); The Lundys Letter (Loughcrew, The Gallery Press, 1987), for which he was awarded the Macauley Fellowship in Literature; Sunday School (The Gallery Press, 1991); Heart of Hearts (The Gallery Press, 1995); The Morning Train (The Gallery Press, 1999) Lake Geneva […]
Seamus Deane was born in Derry in 1940. His poetry collections include Gradual Wars (Shannon, Irish University Press, 1972); Rumours (Dublin, The Dolmen Press, 1977); History Lessons (Dublin, The Gallery Press, 1983); and Selected Poems (The Gallery Press, 1988). His non-fiction includes Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature 1880-1980 (London, Faber & Faber, 1985); […]
Thomas Flanagan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA, in 1923. All four of his grandparents came from Ireland. A high school friend of Truman Capote, he was professor of English literature at Columbia, and later at Berkeley. His speciality was Irish literature, and he visited Ireland every summer over a period of forty years. His […]
Leontia Flynn was born in Belfast in 1974. She was awarded an Eric Gregory Award in 2001. Her collections are These Days (London, Jonathan Cape, 2004), which won the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection of the Year) in 2004, and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award; Drives (Jonathan Cape, 2008); and Profit and Loss […]
Maurice Harmon was born in 1930 in Co Dublin. Emeritus Professor of Anglo-Irish Literature at University College Dublin, he is a distinguished critic, biographer, editor, literary historian, and poet. His published academic work includes Seán Ó Faoláin: A Critical Study; (Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 1966); The Poetry of Thomas Kinsella (Dublin, […]
Fred Johnston was born in Belfast in 1951. His collections are Measuring Angles (Connamara, Clo Iar-Chonnachta, 1993); True North (Cliffs of Moher, Co Clare, Salmon Poetry, 1997); Being Anywhere – New & Selected Poems (Belfast, Lagan Press, 2001); and The Neon Rose (Bristol, Bluechrome, 2007). His novels are Picture of a Girl in a Spanish […]
John Jordan was born in Dublin in 1930. His poetry collections are Patrician Stations (Dublin, New Writers Press, 1971); A Raft from Flotsam (Dublin, The Gallery Press, 1975); Blood and Stations ([verse and autobiographical prose] The Gallery Press, 1976); With Whom Did I Share the Crystal (Meath, St Beuno’s, 1980); Collected Poems ([ed. with preface […]
James Lawless was born in Dublin. His novels are Peeling Oranges (Mullingar, Killynon House Books, 2007); For Love of Anna (New Generation, 2009); The Avenue (Galway, Wordsonthestreet, 2010); Finding Penelope (Stoney Stanton, UK, Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2012); and Knowing Women (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013. His poetry collection is Rus in Urbe (Tralee, Doghouse, 2012). […]
Hugh Leonard (pseudonym of John Keyes Byrne) was born in 1926 and raised in Dalkey, County Dublin. His output is vast and complex, encompassing theatre, including adaptations; television, including Insurrection (RTÉ, 1966), and many adaptations; film, memoir, criticism and journalism. Included amongst his plays are The Big Birthday Suit (Dublin, The Abbey Theatre, 1956); A […]
Seán Lucy was born in India(?) in 1931. His first selection of poems was published in Five Irish Poets (Cork, Mercier Press, 1970). His solo collection is Unfinished Sequence (Dublin, Wolfhound Press, 1979). His critical work includes T.S. Eliot and the Idea of Tradition (1960). He has edited Irish Poets in English The Thomas Davis […]
Thomas MacGreevy was born in Tarbert, Co. Kerry, in 1893. His poetry collections include Poems (London, Heinemann, 1934 [ reprinted New York, The Viking Press, 1934]); Collected Poems edited by Thomas Dillon Redshaw (Dublin, New Writers Press, 1971, foreword by Samuel Beckett [reissued by the Belaqua Series, an imprint of Raven Arts Press, in association […]
(Frederick) Louis MacNeice was born in Belfast in 1907, brought up in Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim and educated in England. He studied Classics and Philosophy at Oxford and both of these subjects informed his poetry. He was known as a translator, literary critic, playwright, autobiographer, BBC producer and feature writer as well as poet. His poetry […]
Liam Mac Uistin was born in Dublin in 1938. His published work includes the novels Esperanza and Dordd (Báile Átha Cliath, Clóchomhar, 1994), for which he won Oireachtas awards, and Mac an Easpaig (Clóchomhar, 1997). His published plays are Pocléim and Liombó (An Clóchamhar), and The Glory and the Dream (Delaware Press, USA). His other […]
Kathleen McCracken was born in Dundalk, Ontario, in 1960. Her collections include Blue Light, Bay and College (Newcastle, Ontario, Penumbra Press, 1991), which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1992; A Geography of Souls (Saskatoon, Thistledown Press, 2002); Mooncalves (Toronto, Exile Editions, 2007); and Tattoo Land (Exile Editions, 2009). She has […]
Peter McDonald was born in Belfast in 1962. His collections are Biting the Wax (Newcastle upon Tyne [now Tarset, Northumberland]Bloodaxe Books, 1989); Adam’s Dream (Bloodaxe, 1996); Pastorals (Manchester, Carcanet, 2004); The House of Clay (Carcanet, 2007); and Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2013). His academic works include Louis MacNeice: The Poet in his Contexts (Oxford, Clarendon Press, […]
Afric McGlinchey was born in Ireland. Her debut collection is The Lucky Star of Hidden Things (Cliffs of Moher, Salmon Poetry, 2012). She grew up in Southern Africa, and received degrees from Rhodes University and the University of Cape Town, where she was tutored by the Nobel prize-winner, JM Coetzee. She has also lived in […]
Tom Mathews was born in Dublin in 1952. His poetry collections are The Owl and the Pussycat (Dublin, Dedalus Press, 2009); and No Return Game (Dedalus Press, 2013). His novel is Levon (Dublin, Ward River Press, 1984). After working in advertising he studied Fine Art at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. […]
Hugh Maxton (pseudonym of W.J. McCormack) was born near Aughrim in Co Wicklow in 1947. He lived intermittently in Hungary over a period of ten years, and has published translations into English of poems by Agnes Nemes Nagy, Sándor Wéöres, and Endre Ady. His poetry as Hugh Maxton includes Stones (Dublin, Allen Figgis, 1970); The […]
Michael Murphy was born in Liverpool in 1965. His poetry collections are After Attila (Nottingham, Shoestring Press, 1998), Elsewhere (Shoestring Press, 2003), and Allotments (Shoestring Press, 2008.) In 2001 he won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, awarded by Poetry Review to the New Poet of the Year, and his poems are included in The New Irish […]
Paul Murphy was born in Belfast in 1965. He has published one collection, In the Luxembourg Gardens (Salzburg, Poetry Salzburg, 1992), and T.S. Eliot’s Postmodernist Complaint (Brisbane, PostPressed), a book a book on TS Eliot and Jacques Lacan. Also an artist, he is presently living in Germany. Paul Murphy’s book on TS Eliot and Jacques […]
Caitríona Ní Chléirchín is from Emyvale in Co Monaghan. Her first collection is Crithloinnir (Baile Átha Cliath, Coscéim, 2010), which won first prize in the Oireachtas competition for new writers 2010. She is an Irish-language lecturer in University College Dublin and is completing a doctorate on the poetry of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Biddy Jenkinson. […]
Frank O’Connor (pen name of Michael O’Donovan) was born in Cork City on September 17, 1903. There is a poignant description of his childhood in the first volume of his autobiography An Only Child. He published two novels, The Saint and Mary Kate (Macmillan, London 1932, 1936/New York 1932 – Blackstaff, Belfast 1990); and Dutch […]
Brian O’Doherty was born in Roscommon in 1934. His novels are The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P. (New York, Pantheon, 1992); and The Deposition of Father McGreevey (New York, Turtle Press, Books & Co., Helen Marx Books, 1999/London, Arcadia Press, 2000), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, 2000. Formerly known as the artist Patrick […]
Mary O’Donnell was born in Co Monaghan. Her poetry collections are Reading the Sunflowers in September (The Cliffs of Moher, Co Clare, Salmon, 1991); Spiderwoman’s Third Avenue Rhapsody (Salmon Poetry, 1993); Unlegendary Heroes (Salmon Publishing, 1998); September Elegies (Belfast, Lapwing Publications, 2003); The Place of Miracles: New & Selected Poems(Dublin, New Island Books, 2006); and […]
Bernard O’Donoghue was born in Co Cork in 1945. His poetry is collected as The Weakness (London, Chatto & Windus, 1992); Gunpowder (Chatto & Windus, 1995), for which he was awarded the Whitebread Prize; Here Nor There (Chatto & Windus, 1999); Poaching Rights (Loughcrew, Co Meath, Gallery Books, 1999); and Outliving (Chatto & Windus, 2003); […]
Dennis O’Driscoll was born in Thurles, Co Tipperary, in 1954. A former editor of Poetry Ireland Review, he was one of Ireland’s most widely published and respected critics of poetry. His poetry volumes include Kist (Mountrath, Dolmen Press, 1982); Hidden Extras (London, Anvil Press Poetry/Dublin, The Dedalus Press, 1987); Long Story Short (Anvil Press Poetry/ […]
Caitriona O’Reilly was born in 1973 and grew up in Wicklow. Her collections are The Nowhere Birds (Tarset, UK, Bloodaxe Books, 2001), which was was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature; The Sea Cabinet (Bloodaxe Books, 2007). She has been contributing editor of Metre, […]
Fintan O’Toole was born in Dublin in 1958. His books include The Politics of Magic: The Work and Times of Tom Murphy (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, 1987); A Mass for Jesse James: A Journey Through 1980s Ireland (Raven Arts Press, 1990); Black Hole, Green Card: The Disappearance of Ireland (Dublin, New Island Books, 1994); Meanwhile […]
Peter Sirr was born in Waterford in 1960. In 1982 he won the Patrick Kavanagh Award and in 1983 the poetry prize at Listowel Writers’ Week. His collections of poetry are Marginal Zones (Loughcrew, Co Meath, The Gallery Press,1984); Talk, Talk (The Gallery Press, 1987); Ways of Falling (The Gallery Press, 1991); The Ledger of […]
Eamonn Wall was born in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford in 1955. He has published two chapbooks, The Tame Goose (New York, The Hale Press, 1990); and Fire Escape (New York, Sunken-Isle Press, 1988). His poetry is collected as Dyckman – 200th Street (Cliffs of Moher, Co Clare, Salmon Publishing, 1994); Iron Mountain Road (Salmon Publishing 1997); […]
