Life
1965- ; victim of cerebral palsy; taught to write by his mother Bernadette,
using an attachment to his head; issued poems, Dam-burst of Dreams
(1981), followed by Under the Eye of the Clock (1987), an autobiography
and winner of the Whitbread Award; Banyan Tree (1999), a novel,
concerns the story of a mother, Minnie O’Brien, married in 1922,
who struggles to keep her small farm at Drumhollow from encroaching neighours,
while her three children leave her to in lonely widowhood; there is a
biography in 100 Irish Lives (Gill and Macmillan 1998). DIL.
Works
Dam-burst of Dreams (1981); Under the Eye of the Clock (1987);
Banyan Tree (London: Phoenix House 1999), 380pp.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)