Life
1937-?1996 [bapt. Martin]; b. July Belfast; ed. Grove Prim. Sch. and Mount
Collyer Intermediate School; various jobs incl. apprentice electrician,
1951-52; Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, 1955-62; electronics engineer; attended
Keele University, 1967-71, B.A. in English and philosophy; English lecturer
at Northern Ireland Polytechnic, Co. Antrim, 1971-75; Warwick Univ., 1975-76,
M.A. in English Literature; returned as senior lecturer to Northern Ireland
Polytechnic, 1976, for several years; novels, The Task (1978),
dealing with revenge wreaked by Sean McCart for the death of his brother
Colm at the hands of the British Army; The Ceremony of Innocence (1977),
examines background McCart family history from World War II; The Road
to Ballyshannon (1981), a story of republican escapees from Belfast
Lough with their RUC hostage, and their death at the hands of Irish police
at Ballyshannon in the civil war period, 1922; Dream (1986), set
between in the Land League period and the Second World War; radio plays
for RTÉ and BBC; alcoholic. DIW DIL DIL2 OCIL
Works
Novels, The Task (London: Secker & Warburg 1975), 203pp.;
The Ceremony of Innocence (London: Secker & Warburg 1977);
and The Road to Ballyshannon (London: Secker & Warburg
1981; rep. Abacus/Sphere 1983), 155pp.; Dream (London: Secker &
Warburg 1986). Criticism, ‘The Castle Rackrent of Somerville
& Ross: An Analysis of the Big House of Inver’, in Étude
Irlandaises (?1979); Radio Plays, Dickens in Belfast (BBC
NI 1979); Ambush (RTÉ 1978); The Hanging of Joy (RTÉ
1980); The O’Neill (RTÉ 1981); Sea Voices (BBCI/RTÉ
1981). Miscellaneous, ‘A Modest Proposal’ [The New
Review] (March 1978), satire ‘Ulysses in the Indian Ocean: Proteus
Chapter of Ulysses’ [Sunday Miscellany broadcast piece] (RTÉ
1987); ‘Shakespeare and Co., Paris’ [Sunday Miscellany broadcast]
(RTÉ 1987); Allingham and the Island of Legend; Allingham and Inis
Sa[ch]er Ballyshannon Sunday Miscellany broadcast] (RTÉ 1988).
Criticism
Linda Leith, ‘Subverting the Sectarian Heritage: Recent Novels of
Northern Ireland’, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Vol.
18, No. 1 (December 1992), pp.88-106.
Edna Longley, ‘Defending Ireland’s Soul: Protestant Writers and Irish nationalism after Independence’, in The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe 1994), pp.162-63.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)