Dermot Bolger

Born in 1959 in Finglas, North Dublin, a mile from Ballymun, Dermot Bolger’s nine novels include The Woman’s Daughter, The Journey Home, Father’s Music, The Valparaiso Voyage and most recently The Family on Paradise Pier.  His debut play, The Lament for Arthur Cleary received The Samuel Beckett Award, two of his plays received Edinburgh Fringe First Awards and From These Green Heights received The Irish Times/ESB Prize for Best New Irish Play of 2004. Collections of his plays have been published by Penguin Books as A Dublin Quartet and by Methuen as Dermot Bolger: Plays 1. The author of seven volumes of poetry, most recently External Affairs (New Island, 2008) he has been Playwright in Association with the Abbey Theatre and Writer Fellow in Trinity College, Dublin. He devised the best-selling collaborative novels, Finbar’s Hotel and Ladies Night at Finbar’s Hotel and has edited many anthologies including The Picador Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction. In addition to premiering the Ballymun Trilogy, Axis also staged the premiere of his play, Walking the Road, a reimagining of the life and death of the poet Francis Ledwidge who died in Flanders in 1917. His first young adult novel, New Town Soul was published by Little Island i n June 2010