Life
1939- ; playwright, b. Dublin; left school at 14 to work as messenger
boy; served for five years in British Royal Air Force; returned to Dublin,
working in tobacco factory; several years as drama critic for The Catholic
Standard; I’m Getting Out of This Kip (1972); Hatchet
(Abbey, 1972), and Red Biddy (Abbey, 1974); winner Rooney
Prize in Irish Literature, 1976, also Abbey Theatre bursary; James Douglas
writes, ‘Working class Dublin background ... characters articulate
their condition through sex, booze, and violence, for no other antidotes
are available for the sameness, sullenness, and lethargy of life and against
poverty and its pains’. DIL
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Works
Hatchet ([Dublin]: Gallery; Newark: Proscenium 1978).
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Criticism
Ferdia Mac Anna, ‘The Dublin Renaissance: An Essay
on Modern Dublin and Dublin Writers’ (Irish Review, 10, Spring
1991, pp.14-30.
Conor McCarthy, Modernisation: Crisis and Culture in Ireland 1969-1992, Dublin: Four Courts Press 2000, p,136.
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Notes
Helena Sheehan, Irish Television Drama (1987), lists RTÉ
film, Hatchet, written by Magee and directed by Tony Barry (1973);
also I’m Getting Out of This Kip, Magee/Barry (1973).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)