Life
1930- ; [pseud. of Bernard Vivian Bolger]; b. Chester; ed. TCD, 1954-57;
lived in Australia and taught at Newcastle Univ., NSW, 1954-57; founded
Books Ireland with Jeremy Addis, 1976; co-editor to 1988; edited
Aer Lingus magazine Cara, 1975-99; wrote The Bed that Went Whoosh
(1964); novels incl. Inish (1966); Merciful Hour (1970);
also The Finner File ([1989] 1990), concerning Franco-Hibernian
espionage and set during the Emergency; edited an anthology of Irish travel
writings, Far Green Fields, fifteen hundred years of Irish travel writing
(Blackstaff 1992), in which is included among many other authors an extract
from his own travel work, The Moon is Upside Down (1962); edited
Irish Lives (1971), a compendium of biography; also Nelson on
His Pillar (1976), a work of Dublin local history; issued The Emergency
(1978), on the WW2 period in Ireland; wrote features for RTÉ and
Australian Broadcasting Corp.; currently lives in Co. Kildare. DIW
OCIL
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Works
The Moon is Upside Down, Travels in the Suburbs of Arcadia (Dublin:
Allen Figgis 1962), 181pp.; The Bed that Went Whoosh! (Dublin:
Allen Figgis 1965) [series of six books for children]; Inish (Dublin:
Allen Figgis 1966); Merciful Hour (Dublin: Allen Figgis 1970);
ed. Irish Lives: Biographies of Fifty Famous Irish Men and Women (Dublin:
Allen Figgis 1971); Nelson on His Pillar (Dublin: Nonpareil 1976);
The Emergency: Neutral Ireland 1939-45 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan
1978); The Flight of Iolar: The Aer Lingus Experience 1936-1986 (Dublin:
Gill and Macmillan 1986); The Finner Faction (Dublin: Odell &
Adair/Poolbeg 1989) 168pp.;
Miscellaneous, ed., Far Green Fields: 1500 Years of Irish Travel Writing (Belfast: Blackstaff 1992) [infra]; Shannon Departures: A Study in Regional Initiatives (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1992); Bunratty: Rebirth of a Castle (Dingle: Brandon 1995); Slanguage: A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English in Ireland (Dublin Gill & Macmillan 1997), 356pp.
Contributions, ‘Downes’s cakeshop and Williams’s Jam’, in John Ryan, ed., A Bash in the Tunnel: James Joyce by the Irish (Brighton: Clifton Books 1970), p.189-92 [infra]; ‘The Gate Theatre’, in Encyclopaedia of Ireland (Dublin: Allen Figgis 1968).
Far Green Fields, 1500 Years of Irish Travel Writing (Belfast: Blackstaff 1992), contains extracts from G. A. Birmingham, A Wayfarer in Hungary (London: Methuen 1925); Robin Bryans, Crete (1969); W F Butler, the Great Lone Land (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington 1889); Maurice Collis, Into Hidden Burma (London: Faber 1953); John Corry, A Satirical View of London (London 1801); Dufferin, Letters from High Latitudes, 11th ed. (London: Dent 1903; first pub. 1857); Desmond Fennell, Mainly in Wonder (London: Hutchinson 1959); Robert Gibbings, Over the Reefs (Dent 1948); Thomas Colley Grattan, Tales of a Walking Gentleman (Lon 1923); Beatrice Grimshaw From fiji to the Cannibal Islands (London: Nelson 1917); Maurice N. Hennessy, Africa Under My Heart (NY: Ives Washburn, 1965); Aidan Higgins, Ronda Gorge and Other Precipices (London: Secker & Warburg 1989); Pamela Hinkson, Indian Harvest (London: Collins 1941); Denis Johnston, Nine Rivers to Jordan (London: David Verschoyle 1953); William Kelly, Life in Victoria, vol. 2 (London: Chapman and Hall 1859); Arthur Leared, A visit to the Court of Morocco (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington 1879); Anita Leslie, Love in a Nutshell (London: Hutchinson 1952); F L McClintock, The Fate of Sir John Franklin, 5th ed. (London: John Murray 1881), first publ. 1860; Micheál MacLiammóir, Put Money in thy Purse (London: Methuen 1952); Frederick Edward Manning, Old New Zealand (Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs 1949; first publ. 1863); John Mitchel, Jail Journal (Dublin: Gill 1913; first publ. 1854); Dervla Murphy, Full Tilt (London: John Murray 1965); Conor O’Brien, Across Three Oceans (London: Arnold 1926); Tadhg Ó Cianáin, The Flight of the Earls, trans. Fr. Paul Walsh (Dublin: M. H. Gill 1916); Pedro Alonso O’Crouley, A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain, trans and ed. by Sean Galvin (Dublin: Allen Figgis 1972); Liam O’Flaherty, Two Years (London: Jonathan Cape 1933; first publ. 1930); John J. O’Meara, trans. Voyage of St Brendan (Dublin: Dolmen 1976); Bernard Share, The Moon is Upside Down (Dublin: Allen Figgis 1962); Peter Somerville-Large, To the Naval of the World (London: Hamish Hamilton 1987); Walter Starkie, Raggle Taggle (London: John Murray 1933); Francis Stuart, States of Mind (Dublin: Raven Arts Press 1984; first pub. in Envoy, 1950); Theo. Wolfe Tone, Life of &c. (Washington 1826); John Tyndall, The Glaciers of the Alps, new ed. (London: Longmans Green 1896; first publ. 1860); Catherine Wilmot, An Irish Peer on the Continent 1810-1803, ed. Thomas U. Sadleir (London: Williams & Northgate 1920); also Share, The Moon is Upside Down (Dublin: Allen Figgis 1962) [biographical notice as above; see also Appletree Catalogue, 1994, p.2].
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Criticism
Thomas J. Horgan, Review of Bernard Share, ed., Far Green Fields,
Fifteen Hundred Years of Irish Travel Writing (Belfast: Blackstaff;
Chester Springs: Dufour 1992), in Irish Literary Supplement (Spring
1994), p.3.
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)