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Irish Writers At A Glance


Irish Author James Joyce Irish Author George Bernard Shaw Irish Author Bram Stoker Irish Author Johnathan Swift Irish Author John Millington Synge Irish Author Oscar Wilde Irish Author William Butler Yeats
Joyce Shaw Stoker Swift Synge Wilde Yeats

The chart below presents a short list of the most famous authors and poets of Irish descent. Please click on the writer's name to search for more books by that author; click on the title of the book to purchase it or obtain further information.


NAME SPECIALTY BIRTH/DEATH RECOMMENDED BOOKS RANDOM FACTS
Samuel Beckett Playwright 1906-1989 Waiting for Godot; Complete Dramatic Works 1969 winner, Nobel Prize for Literature
Brendan Behan Playwright 1923-1964 The Complete Plays; Borstal Boy Member of IRA youth organization who spent time in prison for attempted murder
Roddy Doyle Novelist 1958 - Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha; The Commitments His novel The Commitments was made into a hit 1991 film
Seamus Heaney Poet 1939 - Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1995 winner, Nobel Prize for Literature
James Joyce Novelist 1882-1941 Ulysses; Finnegan's Wake Joyce's novels were so daring that his publishers faced the risk of obscenity charges
Frank McCourt Novelist 1931 - Angela's Ashes McCourt was born in Brooklyn during the Depression, moving back to Ireland at age four
George Bernard Shaw Playwright 1856-1950 Pygmalion; Man and Superman 1925 winner, Nobel Prize for Literature
Bram Stoker Novelist 1847-1912 Dracula Stoker's research for Dracula
took seven years; he based his famous vampire on a sadistic Hungarian ruler,
Vlad the Impaler

Jonathan Swift
Satirist 1667-1745 Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal Swift practically invented the literary art form known as satire

John Millington Synge
Playwright 1871-1909 The Playboy of the Western World; The Aran Islands In Paris, Synge met Yeats, who convinced him to pursue writing
Oscar Wilde Playwright 1854-1900 The Importance of Being Earnest; The Picture of Dorian Gray His affair with Lord Alfred Douglas resulted in a sodomy conviction and a prison sentence
William Butler Yeats Poet 1865-1939 The Yeats Reader 1923 winner, Nobel Prize for Literature; Yeats is also famous for compiling collections of Celtic folk tales

For more information about Irish literature, plus discussion of the lives and works of noted Welsh and Scottish authors, visit the literature section of CelticNetwork.com.

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