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Life
1941- ; b. Ballivor, Co. Meath; ed. National School and Patrician Brothers at Ballyfin, Co. Laois; St. Patrick's TTC, Drumcondra, 1959-61; taught for ten years; appt. gen. ed. of Fallon's education publisher; joined RTE as Educ. Officer, 1975; radio producer, 1977; first produced Education Forum (1979-89) and later The Open Mind (1989-2002); ed. The Open Mind Lecture Series (1999), incl.
Gordon Wilson, John Hume and George Mitchell; his interview series won Jacob's Award with Ewan and Peggy, on the Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger;
ed., A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl (1985), a series of ten interviews with Irish women writers; interviewed Seamus Heaney on My Education; annual documentaries incl. The Mark of Man, Where has Ireland Come From and This Place Speaks to Me; Retired from RTE, 1970 [after 27 yrs. of service]; other documentaries incl. Final Day, NY Festival of Radio Gold Medal, 1990); Rock of Ages, on Skellig Michael ; Pighomage, Boghomage, I Am What I Would Be, on trees; Two Ladies of Galway, on Anne and Catherine Gregory of Coole Park; also a personal account in A Letter to Olive, following the death of his wife in 2001;
pub. as Sea of Love, Sea of Loss (Town House 2003); fiction incls. The Summer of Lily and Esme (1992), winner of Bisto Children's Book Award, and later adapted as 5-part radio play; issued Generations of the Moon (1995), a tale of borderline strife, 1926-75, also for children; prod. and publ. The Tinakilly Senate (1993) and My Education (1997), interviews with 39 people of influence, incl. Seamus Heaney, on their formative years; retired from RTE, 2002; received D.Litt. from Univ. of Limerick (2003).
[Biog. notice at University of Limerick in connection with his hon. degree in 2003 -online; accessed 22.09.2023.]
Works
Editions, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl, with a foreword by Seamus Heaney (London: Methuen 1985) [incls. Molly Keane, Mary Lavin, Jennifer Johnson, Joan Lingard, Edna O’Brien, Maeve Binchy, Clare Boylan, Pooly Devlin, et al.]
Fiction, Generations of the Moon (Dublin: Poolbeg Press 1995, 1996), 523pp.; FOR CHILDREN: The Gold Cross of Killadoo (Dublin: Poolbeg 1992), 106pp.; Duck and Swan (Dublin: Poolbeg 1993), 142pp.; Bill & Fred? (Dublin: O’Brien Press 2005), 206pp.
Miscellaneous, Education for the 1990s: Three Lectures Given at a Symposium in Radio Telefís Éireann, October 1989 (RTÉ 1989), 32pp. [John Coolahan, Ann Higgins, Mike Cooley, John Quinn]; Colman Doyle, All Changed: Fifty Years of Photographing Ireland, text by John Quinn (Dublin: O’Brien Press 2004), 175pp.