Fallon, Padraic

(1905-1974)

   Irish poet, born in Athenry, County Galway, but moved Dublin while he was in his teens, where his first poems were published in the Irish Statesman by 'Æ' (George Russell) (see entry, under AE). He worked as a customs official for over forty years in Wexford and moved back to Dublin in 1963, and then to Cornwall in 1967 before returning to Kinsale, County Cork. He died in Aylesford, Kent, and is buried in Kinsale. Fallon wrote short stories and literary journalism; his verse plays Diarmuid and Grainne (1950) and The Vision of Mac Conglinne (1953) were broadcast on Radio Éireann. His play Sweet Love Till Morn was staged by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1971. The screenplay The Fenians was directed for television by James Plunkett in 1966. His Collected Poems was published by Dolmen Press a few months before his death. In 1990 Carcanet published a new Collected Poems, adding previously unpublished work. His biography, A Hymn of the Dawn, was published by Lilliput Press in 2003. His poems include: "A Bit of Brass," "Assumption," "Dardanelles 1916," "Homeric Hymn to Hermes," "Painting of My Father," "Three Houses," "Yeats at Athenry Perhaps."

   Sources: A Hymn of the Dawn; part autobiographical book by Padraic Fallon. Published by the Lilliput Press (http://www.lilliputpress.ie/listbook.html?oid=2733039). A Look in the Mirror and Other Poems. Padraic Fallon and Eavan Boland, eds. Carcanet Press. 2003. Biography of Padraic Fallon (http://www.irishwriters-online.com/ padraicfallon.html). Carcanet Press (http://www.carcanet.co.uk). Contemporary Irish Poetry: An Anthology. Anthony Bradley, ed. University of California Press. New and rev. ed., 1988. Dylan Thomas's Choice: An Anthology of Verse Spoken by Dylan Thomas. Ralph Maud and Aneirin Talfan Davies, eds. New Directions, 1963. Modern Irish Poetry. Patrick Crotty, ed. The Blackstaff Press, 1995. The Book of Irish Verse: An Antholog y of Irish Poetry from the Sixth Century to the Present. John Montague, ed. Macmillan, 1974. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry. Peter Fallon and Derek Mahon, eds. Penguin Books, 1990. World Poetry: An Antholog y of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time. Katharine Washburn and John S. Major, eds. Publisher, 1338, 1998.