Born in 1947, Dermot Healy lives in Sligo County, Ireland. He has won numerous awards for his fiction, plays and poetry. As member of both Aosdána, an affiliation of creative artists in Ireland, and its governing body Toscaireacht, he has helped to champion the revitalization of Gaeilge and contemporary Irish literature.
If you are looking for an autobiography that is revealing and confessional without being maudlin, I urge you to read his Bend for Home. In his memoir he details how his family moved to Northen Ireland when he was still a boy and how he went to London as a teenager. The themes he explores include isolation, identity (personal and cultural) and alcoholism. Overall it is quite good and the prose is dreamy and often lyrical. I have been told that his fiction is as well. His most recent novel, published just this year, is Long Time, No See.
In the 1999 film I Could Read the Sky he played the part of an old man.
Editors Note:
Dermot Healy died on June 29, 2014, he was 66 years old. The cause of death has yet to be determined.