|
1942- ; b. Derry, raised there and in Donegal (Newtown and Falcarragh), moving to Dublin with parents, 1948; ed. Synge St. CBS, and UCD 1962-66 (English, History and Pol. Sci.); MA in Mod. History (MA 1968) with a dissertation on George (“AE”) Russell and the Co-operative movement; appt. tutor to History Dept. for 5 years; appt. ed. assistant on The Correspondence of Daniel O’Connell (8 vols.) for Irish Manuscript Commission; acted as a freelance journalist and reviewer for thirty years and served as sub.-ed. posts with The Irish Press, Hibernia, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times and The Sunday Tribune; other posts. incl. bank clerk, school-teacher and photographer's assistant; |
appt. lecturer in Journalism at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT); served as tutor in Politics, also at UCD, in the 1990s; issued City of Mirrors (1985), a first collection of poems, Pieces of Time (2004), and Elegies and Epiphanies: Selected Poems (2005); as lit. executor of John Jordan he edited his Collected Poems of John Jordan (1991), Collected Stories (1991), and Collected Prose and Criticism (1995) and is now working on the Selected Prose & Criticism of John Jordan (1995); likewise Selected Poems of John Jordan (April 2008); issued new collection, Empire of Shadows (2012); he lives in Dublin and writes poetry reviews of Books Ireland; his selected prose, Organic Words (2019), his collected prose, was published by Limerick Writers’ Centre in May 2019. |
[ top ]
Works| Poetry |
|
| Prose |
|
| Miscellaneous |
|
[ top ]
Commentary
James J. McAuley, ‘Friar-poet of particulars’, review of Elegies & Epiphanies [inter al.], in The Irish Times (3 Sept.2005), Weekend: ‘Hugh McFadden, a Derryman, long a Dubliner, brings wit and deep sensitivity into his poems of the city, as well as those addressed to figures like John Jordan, Paul Durcan, and Pearse Hutchinson and his memories of figures like Kavanagh and Hartnett. / He gives us a whiff of London in the Blow Up days; but from 1973 to the present he provides insights into - and from - Dublin. Here too are quiet poems for and about family: his low-key irony carries undertones of familial affection, anger, and grief. This selection takes us right up to the 2004 Sky News “take” on machines versus human flesh in Iraq. Several pokes at the Bloomsday boom and a number of urban-nature lyrics signify that this poet has been his own man from the word go.’
Fred Johnston, review of Further On Up the Road (2020), in Books Ireland [q.d.]: ‘A decent preface might have mentioned Derry-born, life-long Dublin resident Hugh McFadden’s considerable achievements. He took his BA degree in University College Dublin in History and Politics and earned an MA in Modern History, moving on to become a tutor in the History Department there, then a tutor in Politics and a lecturer in Journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He carried on what amounts to a tradition of literary folk in the old Irish Press when novelist John Banville was there; indeed, I spent a brief while there myself as a sub-editor. He was the executor of the literary estate of the late poet John Jordan, whose poems and prose he has edited, and he has reviewed widely in publications such as the old Hibernia, the Sunday Tribune and our own Books Ireland. He has produced five collections of his own poetry, including Empire of Shadows (Salmon Poetry, 2012) and a selection of his own prose, Organic Words, from Limerick’s Revival Press in 2019. Truly, he may be described as an eminent ‘figure’ in the Irish literary landscape; the cover of his new collection is a photo of McFadden striding with his grandson through an Arcadian tunnel of touching trees. / One might justly ask why, in the raucous and self-replicating contemporary Irish poetry scene, more isn’t heard of him. [..]’ (See full text of this review in RICORSO Library > Criticism > Reviews - via index or as attached.)
[ top ]
Notes
Journalism: For many years McFadden was a journalist (News Sub-Editor) with The Irish Press: at one stage he was an Assistant Chief Sub-Editor when the novelist John Banville was the paper’s Chief Sub-Editor. He regularly reviewed books for the Press Group of papers, as well as for Hibernia magazine, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times and The Sunday Tribune. [...] has worked in [...] from bank official to wages clerk, to photographer’s assistant, from school-teacher to journalist. [Biographical information contributed by McFadden in response to query; see similar Wikipedia entry - online; accessed 10.11.2015.]