Michael O’Loughlin was born in Dublin in 1958. His poetry collections are Stalingrad: The Street Dictionary (Dublin, Raven Press, 1980); Atlantic Blues (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, 1982); The Diary of a Silence (Raven Arts Press, 1985); Another Nation, New & Selected Poems (Dublin, New Island Books, 1994/UK Arc Publications, 1996); and In This Life (New […]
Sean O’Reilly was born in Derry in 1969. He has published a collection of short stories, Curfew and Other Stories (London, Faber & Faber, 2000). His novels are Love And Sleep (Faber & Faber, 2002); The Swing of Things (Faber & Faber, 2004); and Watermark (Dublin, The Stinging Fly Press, 2005). He lives in Dublin. […]
James Plunkett (James Plunkett Kelly) was born in Dublin in 1920. As well as fiction, he wrote radio and television features, and film scripts. Big Jim (Dublin, O’Donnell, 1955), on the life of the trade unionist Jim Larkin, was commissioned by Radio Éireann. His main work includes the short story collections The Trusting and the […]
J.F. Powers (James Farl Powers) was born on July 8th, 1917, in Jacksonville, Illinois, USA, and was married to the writer Betty Wahl. He published his first stories in The Catholic Worker and, as a pacifist, spent thirteen months in prison during World War II. According to his daughter Katherine A. Powers in an essay […]
Keith Ridgway was born in Dublin in 1965. He has published a collection of short stories, Standard Time (Faber & Faber, 2001); a novella, Horses (London, Faber & Faber, 1997}; and the novels The Long Falling (London, Faber & Faber, 1998/ New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1998); The Parts (Faber & Faber, 2003); Animals (London, Forth […]
Billy Roche was born in Wexford in 1949. He was for many years a singer, fronting his own band, The Roach Band. Best known as a dramatist, he has published one novel, Tumbling Down (Dublin,Wolfhound Press, 1984); and a collection of stories, Tales from Rainwater Pond (Kilkenny, Pillar Press, 2006). His plays include The Wexford […]
Frank Ronan was born in New Ross, Co Wexford in 1963. His first novel, The Man Who Loved Evelyn Cotton (London, Bloomsbury, 1989), received the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Irish Literature Prize. His subsequent novels include A Picnic in Eden (Bloomsbury, 1991); The Better Angel (Bloomsbury, 1992); Lovely (London, Sceptre, 1995); and Home (Sceptre, 2002). His […]
Mary Russell was born in Dublin. Her books are The Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt (London, Harper Collins, 1986); Please Don’t Call it Soviet Georgia (London, Serpents Tail, 1991); and Journeys of a Lifetime (Dublin, Town House/London, Simon and Schuster, 2002). Her short stories have been anthologised in Phoenix Irish Short Stories, ed. David […]
George Bernard Shaw was born in 1856 at 33 Synge Street, Dublin. His place of birth is now a museum in his honour. His novels include Immaturity (composed and serialized, 1879, published 1931, cf below); The Irrational Knot (serialized in Our Corner between April, 1885, and February, 1887.cf below); Love Among the Artists (serialized, 1887-1888, […]
Ronan Sheehan was born in Dublin in 1953. His novels are Tennis Players (Dublin, Co-Op Books, 1977); and Foley’s Asia (Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 1999). His volume of short stories is Boy with an injured eye (Dingle, Brandon Books, 1983). He has won a Hennessy Literary Award for short stories; The Rooney Award, 1983; and […]
John Desmond Sheridan (John D. Sheridan) was born in 1903. His novels include Vanishing Spring (Dublin, The Talbot Press/London: Rich ∓ Cowan, 1934); Paradise Alley (The Talbot Press, 1945); and The Magnificent MacDarney (The Talbot Press, 1949). His short fiction includes The Right Time (The Talbot Press, 1951/London, Dent 1952). His poetry includes Joe’ No […]
Cherry Smyth was born in Ballymoney, County Antrim and grew up in Portstewart, Co Derry. Her poetry collections are When the Lights Go (Belfast, Lagan Press, 2001); and One Wanted Thing (Lagan Press, 2006). Her anthology of women prisoners’ writing, A Strong Voice in a Small Space, (Cherry Picking Press, 2002), won the Raymond Williams […]
Dermot Somers was born in Roscommon, in 1947. His short story collections are Mountains And Other Ghosts (London, Diadem Books, 1990); At The Rising of the Moon (London, Bàton Wicks/Cork, Collins Press, 1994), which won the The Boardman Tasker Prize and the Culture and Environment Award, Banff Mountain Books Festival, 1994; Rince ar na Ballaí […]
Eddie Stack was born in Ennistymon, Co. Clare and emigrated to the United States in 1986. He settled in San Francisco and founded The Island, an Irish journal. His short story collections are The West (US, Island House, 1989/London, Bloomsbury, 1990); for which he received a Top 100 Irish American Award),and Out of the Blue […]
James Stern was born in Co Meath in 1904. He emigrated to South Africa and later to Frankfurt and New York. His books include The Heartless Land (London, MacMillan, 1932); Something Wrong (MacMillan); The Man who was Loved (MacMillan); The Stories of Jimmy Stern (MacMillan, 1968) and The Hidden Damage (London, The Chelsea Press, with […]
Abraham ‘Bram’ Stoker was born in Marino Crescent in Clontarf, Dublin, in 1847. Stoker married Oscar Wilde’s former sweetheart Florence Balcombe in 1878 and moved with her to London where he became business manager of Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre. His first horror writing, The Chain Of Destiny, appeared as a serial in the Shamrock magazine […]
Eithne Strong was born in Limerick in 1925. Her poetry includes Cirt Oibre (Coiscéim, 1980); Fuill agus Fallaí (Coiscéim, 1983); Aoife fe Ghlas (Coiscéim, 1990); An Sagart Pinc (Coiscéim, 1990); Poetry Quartos (Dublin, Runa Press, 1943-45); Songs of Living (Runa Press, 1961); Sarah in Passing (Dublin, The Dolmen Press, 1974); Flesh – The Greatest Sin […]
Patrick Taylor was born in 1941 and brought up in Bangor, Co. Down. His works of fiction include a short story collection, Only Wounded: Ulster Stories(Key Porter, 1997). His novels are Pray for Us Sinners (Ontario, Insomniac Press, 2000); Now and in the Hour of Our Death (Insomniac Press, 2005): An Irish Country Doctor (New […]
Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford in 1955. His novels are The South (London, Serpent’s Tail, 1990; New York, Viking, 1991); The Heather Blazing (London, Picador, 1992; New York, Viking, 1993); The Story of the Night (Picador 1997); The Blackwater Lightship (Picador, 1999) for which he was shortlisted for The Booker Prize, 1999; […]
Peter Tremayne is the fiction-writing pseudonym of the Celtic scholar and author Peter Berresford Ellis. He was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, in England, on March 10, 1943. His father was a Cork-born journalist who started his career on the Cork Examiner. A prolific writer, who also publishes under the pseudonym Peter MacAlan, he has published […]
William Trevor (birth name William Trevor Cox) was born in Mitchelstown Co Cork in 1928. His novels include The Old Boys (London, The Bodley Head, 1964), which won The Hawthornden Prize; The Boarding House (The Bodley Head, 1965); The Love Department (The Bodley Head, 1966); Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neills Hotel (The Bodley Head, 1969); Miss […]
Nesta Tuomey was born in Dublin. Her novels are Up Up and Away (Cork, Emperor Publishing, 1995); and Like One Of The Family (Dingle, Mount Eagle, 1999). Her plays, documentaries and short stories have been broadcast by BBC and RTÉ and her one-act play Whose Baby won the O.Z. Whitehead Play Competition in 1996. She […]
Una Troy was born in 1910 in Fermoy, Co Cork. She began her writing career under the name of Elizabeth Connor, and her novels from this period are Mount Prospect (London, Methuen, 1936/US, No House of Peace, 1937), which was banned in Ireland; and Dead Star’s Light (Methuen, 1938). In 1940 she adapted Mount Prospect […]
Katharine Tynan was born at Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin in 1861. She published many poetry collections include Louise de la Valliere and Other Poems (London, Kegan, Paul Trench, & Co., 1885); Shamrocks (Kegan, Paul Trench, & Co., 1887); Ballads & Lyrics (Keegan, Paul, 1891); New Poems (London, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1911); The Flower of Peace: […]
Mervyn Wall was born in Dublin in 1908. His main works include the novels The Unfortunate Fursey (London, the Pilot Press, 1946/New York, Crown Publishers, 1947); The Return of Fursey (London, The Pilot Press, 1948); Leaves for the Burning (London, Methuen, 1952/New York, Devin-Adair, 1952); No Trophies Raise (Metheun, 1956); Hermitage (Dublin, The Wolfhound Press, […]
William Wall was born in Cork in 1955. His poetry collections are Mathematics & Other Poems* (Collins Press 1997), which won The Patrick Kavanagh Award and the Listowel Writers’ Week Collection Prize; Fahrenheit Says Nothing To Me (Dublin, Dedalus Press, 2004); and Ghost Estate (Cliffs of Moher, Salmon Poetry, 2011). As Bill Wall, he has […]
Eugene Watters/Eoghan Ó Tuairisc was born in Ballinasloe, Co Galway in 1919. He received a Masters Degree in English Literature and Language from UCD. He served as an Officer in the Irish Army and worked as a primary teacher in Dublin until 1961, when he became a full time writer. After the death of his […]
Victoria White was born in Dublin in 1962. Her collection of short stories, Raving Autumn, was published by Poolebeg, Dublin, in 1990. Her non-fiction includes Mother Ireland: Why Ireland Hates Motherhood (Dublin, Londubh Books, 2010). She lives in Dublin. Victoria White at Londubh Books Victoria White at The National Library of Ireland
