David Park was born in Belfast in 1954. His novels are The Healing (London, Jonathan Cape, 1992); The Rye Man (Jonathan Cape, 1994); Stone Kingdoms (London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1996); The Big Snow (London, Bloomsbury, 2002); Swallowing the Sun (Bloomsbury, 2004); and The Truth Commissioner (Bloomsbury, 2008), for which he was awarded the 2009 Ewart–Biggs [...]
Siobhán Parkinson was born in 1954 in Dublin but grew up in Galway and Donegal. Her books for children include The Leprechaun Who Wished He Wasn’t (O’Brien, 1993, reprinted 2003); Four Kids, Three Cats, Two Cows, One Witch (Maybe) (Dublin, O’Brien Press, 1998), which won a Bisto Merit Award; Sisters… No Way! (O’Brien Press, 1998), [...]
James Stewart Parker was born in Belfast in 1941. While still in his teens, he contracted bone cancer and had a leg amputated. He was part of a group of young writers which included Seamus Heaney and Bernard MacLaverty in Queen’s University, Belfast. His stage plays include Spokesong (Dublin Theatre Festival, John Player Theatre, 1975); [...]
Julie Parsons was born in New Zealand but grew up in Ireland from an early age. Her novels are Mary, Mary (London, MacMillan, 1998); Courtship Gift (MacMillan, 1999); Eager to Please (MacMillan, 2001); The Guilty Heart (MacMillan 2003); The Smoking Room (MacMillan, 2004); The Hourglass (MacMillan, 2006). A former producer with RTÉ radio and television, [...]
Glenn Patterson was born in Belfast in 1961. His novels include Burning Your Own (London, Chatto & Windus, 1988); Fat Lad (Chatto & Windus, 1992); Black Night at Big Thunder Mountain (Chatto & Windus, 1995); The International (London, Anchor, 1999); Number 5 (London, Hamish Hamilton, 2003); That Which Was (London, Hamish Hamilton, 2004); and The [...]
Basil Payne was born in Dublin on June 23, 1923. His collections include Sunlight on a Square (Dublin, John Augustin,1961); Love in the Afternoon (Gill and MacMillan, Dublin, 1971); Another Kind of Optimism (Gill and MacMillan, 1974); and Voyage à Deux (Geneva, Perret-Gentil, 1974 [French translation by Chantal Béal, preface by Pierre Emmanuel of the [...]
Paul Perry was born in Dublin in 1972. His collections are The Drowning of the Saints (The Cliffs of Moher, Co Clare, Salmon, 2003); The Orchid Keeper (Dublin, The Dedalus Press, 2006); and The Last Falcon and Small Ordinance (The Dedalus Press, 2010). He has won the Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year Award [...]
Tom Phelan was born in Strahard, Mountmellick, County Laois, in 1940. His books are In the Season of the Daisies (Dublin, Lilliput 1993/New York, Four Walls, 1996/ Paris, Editions Balland, 1997) Iscariot (Kerry, Brandon 1995/ Munich, Franz Schneekluth Verlag, 1997); Derrycloney (Brandon, 1999); The Canal Bridge (Lilliput, 2005); and Nailer (Freeport, New York, Glanvil Press, [...]
James Plunkett 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 Maimed (New York, [...]
Homan Potterton was born in 1946. His memoir of growing up on a farm in County Meath in the 1950s is Rathcormick: a Childhood Recalled (New Island 2001 and Vintage 2004). He was Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, 1980-88, and has written numerous art books and catalogues. He lives in France. Homan Potterton’s [...]
