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| Irish Writing Legends |
Patrick Kavanagh 1904-1967
Sample Works: Ploughman and Other Poems 1936, The Green Fool 1938, The Great Hunger 1948, Tarry Flynn 1948, Come dance with Kitty Stobling 1960, Collected Poems 1964
Profile: Son of a small farmer in Inniskeen, Co Monaghan. Worked most of his life as a freelance jounalist. The Great Hunger and Tarry Flynn were both banned, but later successfully adapted for the stage. Sued The Leader for libel in 1954, but lost the case. Diagnosed with lung cancer in the same year. Author of the classic song On Raglan Road, Married Kathleen Maloney in 1967 but died in Dublin that same year.
Jonathan Swift
Sample Works: Gullivers Travels 1697, A tale of a Tub 1704.
Profile: Born in Dublin, Swift studied at Kilkenny Grammar School, Trinity College and was ordained into the Church of Ireland in 1695.Probably the greatest prose satirist in the english language, his most famous book “Gullivers Travels” was intended for adults but almost became immediately a favourite with children. Although he thought Ireland ‘the most miserable country upon earth’ he was much loved, particular in Dublin. He died mad and left most of his estate to for the establishment of St Patricks Hospital, which still treats mental illness.
Samuel Beckett 1906-1989
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Sample Works: Waiting for Godot 1949, Endgame 1957, Krapps Last Tape 1958, Happy Days 1960, Novels- Murphy 1938, Molloy 1948 Malone Dies 1948, The Unaneable 1950
Profile: Born in Dublin, Beckett was educated in Portora school and Trinity College.Moved to France in 1936. Friend of James Joyce. Worked for the Frenxh Resistance during World War 11.Most of his best work was first written in French, which hee then transalated into English. In his most famous play, two tramps wait for Godot, who never appears. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969. Died in Paris.
George Bernard Shaw
Sample Works: The Devils Disciple 1897, John Bull’s Other Island1904, Man and Superman 1905, The Doctors Dilemna 1906, Pygmalion 1914, Heartbreak House 1920, Saint John 1923.
Profile: A middle-class Dublin Protestant, Shaw wrote fifty plays, five novels and an immense amount on music, art, politics, vegetarianism, economics and religion. The film My Fair Lady was based on his play Pygmalion. Under the terms of his will, royalties from his work have funded the National Gallery of Ireland. In 1898 Shaww married Charlotte Payne- Townshend. He won the Nobel Prize in 1925. Died in Ayot St Lawrence, near London
James Joyce
Sample Works: Dubliners 1914, A Portrait of the Artist, 1916, Ulysses 1922, Finnegans Wake 1939.
Profile: Educated by the Jesuits at Clongowes and Belvedere, Joyce graduated from UCD and moved to Paris in 1902. Spent most of his liofe in Italy, Switzerland, and France. Ulysses, his masterpiece, decribes one day in the life of a Dublin Jew, Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly and Stephen Dedulas, based on Joyce himself.. June 16th is now commemorateed as Bloomsday. Finnegans Wake, a dream book about Dublin, is written in a compound of many languages. Joyce married Nora Barnacle in 1923. Died in Zurich.
Sean O’Casey
Sample Works: Shadow of a Gunman 1923, Juno and the Paycock, The Plough and the Stars, 1926, Purple Duast 1940, The Drums of Father Ned 1959.
Profile: A working class Dublin Protestant, O’Casey only learned to read in his early teens. A republican socialist, he was first secretary of the Citizen Army. After the Plough and the Stars which is set in 1916, sparked riots in the Abbey Theatre, O’Casey left Ireland. This decision was reinforced when the Abbey rejected his nexxt play, The Silver Tassie, 1927. Later plays are experimental, comic, fantastic. Wrote six volumes of vivid autobiography. Died in Devon.
William Butler Yeats
Sample Works: The Wandering of Oisin 1889, The Celtic Twilight 1893, The Wind among the Reeds, 1899, Cathleen Ni Houlihan 1902, The Wild Swans at Coole 1919, Collected Poems 1956.
Profile: A dublin Protestant with Sligo connections, Yeats came from an extraordinary family, his father John B. and his brother Jack B. were important painters. As well as perhaps the greatest poet of of the 20th century, yeats founded the Abbet Theatre and was a Seanator. Awarded the Nobel pRize in 1923. Died in France and is buried in Dumcliffe churchyard, Sligo.
Oscar Wilde
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Sample Works: The Happy Prince and other Tales 1888, The Picture of Dorian Grey 1891, Lady Windermeres Fan 1892 A woman of No Importance 1893, An Ideal Husband 1895 The Important of being Ernest 1895.
Profile: A dublin Protestant, educated at Portora School and Trinity , Oscar Wilde was a great comic writer whose genius also sparkled in conversation. Hugely famous, and successful as a playright in London, his world collapsed when he was convicted of gross indecency for homeosexual acts and sentenced to two years penal servitude. In prison he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Died in Paris.
John Banville
===========================================================Sample Works: Long Laankin 1970, Dr Copernicus 1976, Kepler 1981, The Book of Evidence 1989, The untouchable 1997 The Sea 2005.
Profile: Born in Wexford , Banville has for Aer Lingus and as a journalist, in Dublin. He won the James Tait Balack Memorial Prize for Dr Copernicus, the Guinness Peat Aviation Book Award for The Book of Evidence and the 2005 Man –Booker Prize for the Sea. A master prose stylist, he has also written a television adaption of his own nevella The Newton Letter and in 1999 a cinema verssion of Elizabeth Bowen novel The Last September.
Brendan Behan
Sample Works; The Quare Fellow, 1954, The Hostage, 1957 Borstal Boy 1958 Hold Your Hour and have another 1963.
From a Dublin working class and republican family, Behan was sent to Borstal for three years in 1939 for possession of explosives. Released after three years in 1939 for possession of explosives . Released after two years, he was sentenced to 14 years in 1942 for shooting at gardai during an IRA commemoration at Glasnevin Cemetary. He was released in 1947 . His language play, An Giall, became an international success when produced as the Hostage by Joan Littlewood in London. He died in Dublin of alcoholism and diabetes.
John McGahern
Sample Works: The Barracks 1963, The Dark 1965, Amongst Women 1990, That they may face the rising sun2001, Memoir 2005
Profile: Born in Dublin but Brought up in Cootehill, Co Leitrim. While working as a primary teacher, his first novel. The barracks, won the AE Memorial Award, But when the Dark, was banned he was sacked and left Ireland. Eventually He returned and lived in Leitrim until his death. Amonst women was made ino four part TV series by the BBc and shortliasted for the Bookers prize . 200,000 copies of That They May Face the Rising Sun were given away free as the first of the Irish Independents Great Irish Novels Series.
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