Life
1933- ; b. 5 July, Muckamore, Co. Antrim, son of foreman at Linen Bleaching
Mills, York St. Flax Spinning Co. (Belfast); ed. Belfast, school-teacher
for six years, then BBC radio features producer, Northern Ireland, later
BBC radio drama features head in London; Fly Away Peter (1960),
a radio play about a schoolmaster on the eve of retirement; novels, The
Liberty Lad (1965); Poor Lazarus (1969), Guardian Fiction Prize,
1969; both novels banned in Rep. of Ireland; Stamping Ground (London:
Secker & Warburg 1975); followed by Silver’s City (1981),
Whitbread Prize; left N. Ireland in 1970 and lives in London, working
for BBC to 1988; The Hands of Cheryl Boyd (1987), and Whispers
(1987), novella; and Burning Bridges (1989) [set in London,
but returning to Ireland]; also screenplays, including Rifleman, Pye TV
award, 1980; dir. The Third Policeman with Patrick Magee reading
for BBC4 ‘Late Book’ programme; issued The Smoke King (1998),
murder story set in wartime Ulster town and concerning the false accusation
of an American black soldier, centred on Denis Lawlor, an RUC officer
who transferred north at Partition but still who listens to Radio Eireann;
recipient of dedication in Derek Mahon’s poem ‘Autobiographies’;
lives in north London [photo-portrait appears in Wilson review, infra.];
issued The Eggman’s Apprentice (2001). DIL
Works
Fiction, The Liberty Lad (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1965;
Belfast: Blackstaff 1985, 1987); Poor Lazarus (London: MacGibbon
& Kee 1969; Panther Books 1970; Belfast: Blackstaff 1986); Stamping
Ground (London: Secker & Warburg 1975); Silver’s City
(London: Secker & Warburg 1981), Do., rep. (London: Abacus
1983), 181pp.; Chinese Whispers (London: Hutchinson 1987), novella,
ill. Sam Hunter [with imbossed gilt author’s signature on cover];
The Hands of Cheryl Boyd and Other Stories (London: Hutchinson
1987) [contains ‘Black is the Colour’, ‘The Temperate House’,
‘Monkey Nuts’, ‘Bedroom Eyes’, ‘Where are you
Taking Us To-day, Daddy?’, Happy Hours’, ‘Green Roads’,
and title story]; Burning Bridges (London: Hutchinson 1989); Gilchrist
(London: Secker & Warburg 1994), 388pp.; The Smoke King
(London: Secker & Warburg 1998), 360pp.; The Eggman’s Apprentice
(London: Secker & Warburg 2001), 346pp.
Miscellaneous, pages of ‘Work in Progress’ appeared in Threshold 1966; also ‘The Hand of Cheryl Boyd’, Threshold, No. 37 (Winter 1986 / 87), pp.41-47.
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Criticism
John Cronin, ‘Ulster's Alarming Novels’, Éire-Ireland, 4,
4 (Winter 1969), pp.27-34.
John Cronin, ‘Prose’, in Michael Longley, ed., Causeway: The Arts in Ulster (1971), pp.72-94, espec. pp.77-79.
J. W. Foster, Forces and Themes in Ulster Fiction (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan 1974), pp.268-74.
Tom Paulin, ‘A Necessary Provincialism: Brian Moore, Maurice Leitch, Florence Mary McDowell’ pp.244-56, in Douglas Dunn, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing (1975) [q.pp.].
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.
Richard Mills, ‘’Closed Places of the Spirit: interview with Maurice Leitch’, in Irish Studies Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (April 1998), pp.63-68 [with photo-port].
J. W. Foster, Themes and Forces in Ulster Fiction (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1974) [incl. ntoes on The Liberty Lad, and Poor Lazarus].
Interview articles, ‘Maurice Leitch’, in Julia Carlson, ed. Banned in Ireland (Georgia UP; London: Routledge 1990), pp.99-108.
C. L. Dallat, ‘Standing by the Work Ethic’,
in Causeway 1 (Autumn 1993), pp.47-51.
Robert McLiam Wilson, review of Gilchrist (1994), in Fortnight Review, Sept. 1994.
Liam McIlvanney, ‘War
in Scotch Street, review of The Smoke King, in TLS, 13.13.98.
Carlo Gébler, review of The Smoke King, in Fortnight
in 1 June 1998, pp.29-30.
Niall McGrath review of The Smoke King (Irish Times, 25
April. 1998).
John Kenny, review of The Eggman’s Apprentice (London: Secker & Warburg 2001), 346pp., in The Irish Times, Weekend, 2 June, p. 15.
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Books in Print (1994), The Liberty Lad (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1965; Belfast: Blackstaff 1985) [0 85640 332 6]; Poor Lazarus (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1969; Belfast: Blackstaff 1986) [0 85640 342 3] [Guardian Fiction Prize]; Stamping Ground (London: Secker & Warburg 1975) [0 43624 414 4]; Silver’s City (1981), rep. (London: Secker & Warburg) [0349 12179 6]; Chinese Whispers (London: Hutchinson [1987]), ill. Sam Hunter [0 091727 27 9]; The Hands of Cheryl Boyd and Other Stories (London: Hutchinson 1987) [0 09172632 8]; Burning Bridges (London: Hutchinson 1989) [0 09 1735 39 4]
The Liberty Lad, Liberty Lad set in Antrim mill village
in dying days of linen trade; Frank Glass, a young schoolteacher, is gradually
turning his back on Kilgarden, the mill village of his youth, beckoned
by the tantalising and threatening larger world beyond; failure to secure
headship; his ‘friend’ is Terry, a homosexual who bitterly resents
the narrowness and bigotry of small-town society; Frank is introduced
to the local gay world which he observes, fascinated but ultimately uninvolved,
and Bradley, Terry’s cynical MP friend, who tries to seduce him;
fails in making love to Mona Purdy, the school’s married secretary;
Blackstaff cover is a painting by Gerald Dillon, The self-contained
flat [Blackstaff Catalogue 1985].
Poor Lazarus, novel set in a predominantly Catholic S. Armagh
Irish border town, concerns relationship between two men, Yar, a Protestant
and a ‘character’ with a history of mental disorder, and Quigley,
a Canadian who hopes to make a programme on the ‘oudl country’ for his Toronto boss, using Yar for material; at one point Yar tries to
strangle Catholic girl who has gone into a field with him; reviewers [Brendan
Glacken and Benedict Kiely] comment on its grotesque but vital vision
of small-town, small-minded Ireland of the 1960s; horror, suicide, and
cockfighting in Ballyboe (Blackstaff Catalogue 1986.)
Silver City, Silver Steele, in prison, dying of cancer (unknown
to himself); terrorist, ‘loved for being the original’; on getting
involved, ‘someone in a pub one night casually asked if he’d
like to make some extra bread helping the cause. it was as sloppy as that.’
(p.65); loyalist godfather Billy Bonner; psychopathic killer Ned Galloway
is from Scotland (Caledonia); Galloway kills Nan, Silver’s woman;
Galloway humiliated and physically abused; in his own conception a ‘naught
one’; the sleeping partner is Mr Wonderful, a businessman who ‘runs
this place [...] Not politicians or even government but people like me’
(p.158); after sentencing for the murder of Galloway, ‘he [Silver]
would have plenty of time to go over the things that crammed his head.
That would be his sentence.’ (pp.181).
Gay Notes: The Royal Avenue (RA) Bar in Rosemary Street (the hotel's public bar, opposite the Red Barn pub) as portrayed in Maurice Leitch's fine 1965 novel The Liberty Lad (probably the earliest description of a gay bar in Irish literature) was the first in the city. It operated from some time in the 1950s being shared at times with deaf and dumb customers who often occupied the front of the bar. The two (straight) staff in the RA ran a tight but tolerant ship. Two lesbians, Greta and Anne, were the only females who in the 1960s were regular customers. At that time and until the end of the 1970s, pubs closed sharply at 10 p.m. (... &c.) Notes supplied by G. Walker at Belfast Telegraph [email].
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)