Internationally acclaimed Kilkenny writer pens autobiography

According to Callan literary icon, Thomas Kilroy, his captivating memoir materialised in response to a cataract operation in 2006, shocking his memory into being and imparting him with a uniquely tactile and sensuous perception of his own past.
Over the Backyard Wall describes a coming of age embodied by escape, self-discovery and a struggle to contend with the rigid culture of a small Irish town in Co. Kilkenny during World War II, with parents representing both sides of the civil war conflict of the 1920s.
He describes encounters with fellow Kilkenny artists Tony O’Malley and Hubert Butler, and writers such as Flannery O’Connor during his tour of the southern US states in the 1950s.
In keeping with Kilroy’s previous works, Over the Backyard Wall utilizes the silences of the past to liberate the imagination, making use of social and political history to reinvigorate the shard-like nature of his own narrative memory.
Thomas Kilroy was born on Greenview Terrace, Callan and studied at University College Dublin.
He was play editor at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin and later sat on the board of Field Day Theatre Company.
He became Professor of English at UCG. He is currently living in Mayo and is a member of the Royal Society of Literature.
One of Ireland’s most distinguished living playwrights, he is best known for his iconic novel, The Big Chapel (1971) which was nominated for the Booker Prize and won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Heinemann Prize.
• A new production of ‘Double Cross’, Kilroy’s 1986 play on Brendan Bracken and William Joyce, will launch at The Abbey Theatre this autumn.
• A staging of Kilroy’s 1971 novel The Big Chapel will be performed during the Kilkenny Arts Festival in August next year.
• Cork University Press is publishing a book on Kilroy’s plays later this year.