Life
1955- ; b. 17 Aug. in Dublin; son of Tomás Mac Anna, dir. Abbey
Theatre; briefly studied Anglo-Irish Lit. at UCD, autumn 1977 (‘a totally insane
thing to do’); six years touring with rock bands Gravediggers and
Rhythm Kings as singer Rocky de Valera; played at Clare by-election for
Billy Loughnane, Síle de Valera’s election opponent in the
late 1970s; survived brain haemorrhage and cancer, described in Bald
Head (1988); worked as researcher on Gay Byrne Late Late Show; issued first novel, The Last of the High Kings (1991)
filmed with Gabriel Byrne, 1995; also The Ship Inspector (1994);
a play, Big Mom, about a travelling rock group, appeared for a
fortnight at the Project, April 1994; m. to Katherine Holmquist, American-born
Irish Times journalist;
writer in residence at DCU from 1996; issued Cartoon City (2000), Dublin-based
thriller; also The Last of the Baldheads (2004), memoir. DIL
Works
Novels, The Last of the High Kings (London: Michael Joseph
1991), 175pp., Do., pb. rep. (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1997), 175pp.;
The Ship Inspector (London: Michael Joseph 1994), 282pp.; Cartoon
City (London: Review 2000), 279pp.
Miscellaneous, Bald Head: A Cancer Story (Dublin: Raven Arts 1988); and The Last of the Bald Heads: A Memoir (Hodder Headline Ireland 2005); ed., An Anthology of Irish Comic Writing (London: Michael Joseph 1995), 411pp.; brief autograph notice in Sunday Independent (31 March 1996), p.6 [infra]; also ‘The Dublin Renaissance: An Essay on Modern Dublin and Dublin Writers’, in Irish Review, No. 10, Spring 1991).
Criticism
Conor McCarthy, ‘Modernisation without Modernism: Dermot Bolger and
the “Dublin Renaissance”’, in Modernisation: Crisis
and Culture in Ireland 1969-1992 (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2000),
pp.135-64 [critiques his essay, here quoted by title, passim].
Rudie Goldsmith, review of The Last of the Baldheads, in Fortnight [Belfast] (Feb. 2005), p.26.
John Kenny, reviewing Ferdia MacAnna, Cartoon City, in The
Irish Times (14 Feb. 2000).
Conor McCarthy, ‘Modernisation without Modernism: Dermot Bolger and the “Dublin Renaissance”’ Modernisation: Crisis and Culture in Ireland 1969-1992, Dublin: Four Courts Press 2000, pp.137-38, 145, 148, 149.
Notes
The Ship Inspector (1994), deals with the chaotic Buckley
family, as the previous novel introduced us to the Griffin household;
the narrator-central character is Daniel Buckley, backed by a horde of
minor gas men and women; mockery of rabid Fianna Failers; his mother,
like Mrs Griffin in the last book, an Elizabeth Taylor; other funny incidents
include transvestite farmer; recommended as funny-touching. (See review
in Books Ireland, Sept. 1994.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)