Gerard Beirne

Gerard Beirne
Born	(1962-10-30) October 30, 1962 (age 62) County Tipperary, Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Citizenship	Irish, Canadian
Alma mater	Trinity College, Dublin
Notable awards	Sunday Tribune New Irish Writer of the Year, 1996
Spouse	Eilish Cleary ​ ​ (m. 1989; div. 2015)​
Children	4, including Luke Francis Beirne
Website
www.gerardbeirne.com

Gerard Beirne is an Irish author and literary editor. He is a fiction editor for The Fiddlehead and curates the online magazine The Irish Literary Times.[1]

In 2008, Beirne served as Writer in Residence at the University of New Brunswick, where he taught creative writing.[2] Beirne currently teaches on the BA Writing and Literature Program at the Atlantic Technological University in Sligo.

Awards and honours

In 1996, Beirne was awarded two Hennessey Literary Awards, "New Irish Writer of the Year" and "Best Emerging Fiction Writer".[3][4] His debut novel The Eskimo in the Net was short-listed for the 2004 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award and was selected as Book of the Year by the Daily Express.[5] In 1997, Digging My Own Grave was runner-up for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award.[6] In 2000, Bono starred in a short film adaptation of Beirne's story "Sightings of Bono." Beirne's collaboration with composer Siobhán Cleary, Hum, was called "a theatrical tour de force" by The Irish Times.[7] Beirne's first short story collection, In a Time of Drought and Hunger was shortlisted for the 2016 Danuta Gleed Literary Award.[8] That same year, he was shortlisted for the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards for his short story "What a River Remembers of its Course."[9]

Selected works

Novels

• The Eskimo in the Net. London: Marion Boyars, 2003.
• Turtle. Ottawa: Oberon, 2009.
• Charlie Tallulah. Ottawa: Oberon, 2013.
• The Thickness of Ice. Montreal: Baraka Books, 2024.

Short story collections

• In a Time of Drought and Hunger. Ottawa: Oberon, 2015.

Poetry

• Digging My Own Grave. Dublin: Dedalus, 1997.
• Games of Chance: A Gambler's Manual. Ottawa: Oberon, 2011.
• The Death Poems: Songs, Visions, Meditations. Cromer: Salt Publishing, 2023.

Theatre and film

• Hum! with Siobhán Cleary. Commissioned by Irish Chamber Orchestra 1998. Revived by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in 2020.
• Sightings of Bono. Parallel Productions, 2000. Starring Bono.

References

1. "Gerard Beirne - Poetry". Connotation Press. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
2. "Gerard Beirne". University of New Brunswick (unb.ca). BA, BAI (Trinity College Dublin), MFA (Eastern Washington University). Retrieved 13 May 2015.
3. "New Irish Writing – Hennessy Literary Awards: Winners through the decades". The Irish Times. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
4. "Gerard Beirne". Marion Boyars. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
5. "Gerard Beirne". Irish Writers Online. Archived from the original on 4 October 2009. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
6. "After this/ I lead you into form: Poems — Gerard Beirne". Numéro Cinq. 12 September 2012. Archived from the original on 15 March 2015. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
7. "Two Poems by Gerard Beirne". Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
8. "Short-story award short list revealed". Winnipeg Free Press, June 11, 2016.
9. "Shortlists revealed for Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2016". The Irish Times. Retrieved 6 August 2022.

External links

• Gerard Beirne.com — official website.