SYDNEY BERNARD SMITH: Sydney Bernard Smith, who has died aged 72, was a poet, playwright, satirist and sometime actor whose work was broadcast by RTÉ, BBC and Channel 4, and staged in Ireland, Edinburgh and the US.
In 1985 he was listed by The Irish Timesas one of the 100 key names in Irish literature. His verse ranged from the robust and satirical directness of the public poems to a sensitive search for a line with living rhythm and its own resonance.
Mary Cloake, director of the Arts Council, this week described him as "a man of great intellect and a cherished member of Aosdána" whose death was a great loss to Irish art.
Born in Glasgow in 1936, he was the son of Sydney Clark Smith and his wife Bridget. He grew up in Portstewart, Co Derry. Educated at Clongowes Wood School and Queen's College, Oxford, he later participated in the University of Iowa International Writers' Programme.
He taught for 15 years in Ireland, Spain, Germany and the US, and was a frequent visitor to schools in the early days of the Arts Council's writers-in-schools scheme.
A contributor to Arena, Broadsheetand the Kilkenny Magazine, his first volume of poetry Girl with Violinwas published in 1968. There followed Priorities(1979), Sensualities(1981) and Scurrilities(1981). His New and Selected Poemswas published in 1984.
Plays include Sherca(1976), Don Bosco, Gráinne and the Dole (1978), The Illaunaspie Triangle(1978), On Course for Brazil(1985), Up for Bloomsday(1985) and The Shaming of the True(1995). How to Roast a Strasbourg Goose(1985) was performed at the Dublin Theatre Festival.
The first volume of his Collected Writingswas published in 2005.
Having previously lived on Inishbofin, Co Galway, and Clare Island, Co Mayo, he lived in recent years in Dundalk, Co Louth.
His sons Daniel, Sydney and Cormac and daughters Emer and Cynthia survive him.
Sydney Bernard Smith: born August 4th, 1936; died October 11th, 2008