Born: October 16th, 1944
Died: May 17th, 2025
Paul Durcan, one of Ireland’s most prominent and most popular contemporary poets has died aged 80. The author of more than 20 collections of poetry, Durcan was renowned for his highly engaging poetry readings, which were infused with anger, melancholy, irreverence, black humour and above all sharp observations of human experiences, including his own.
His poetry examined both private complex relationships (the breakdown of his marriage, his strained relationship with his father) and the wider political and cultural impacts of the grip of the Catholic Church in Ireland, conflict in Northern Ireland, the Irish divorce referendum, homelessness and domestic violence. He also wrote acerbically witty poems about paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland (Crazy About Women, 1991) and the National Gallery of London (Give Me Your Hand, 1994).
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In 1974, Durcan won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award for his debut collection, O Westport in the light of Asia Minor. In 1990, he won the Whitbread award for poetry for his collection, Daddy, Daddy. And in 2014, Durcan was presented with a lifetime achievement award at the Irish Book Awards.
His other collections include The Berlin Wall Café (Blackstaff Press, 1985), Going Home to Russia (Blackstaff Press, 1987), Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil (Harvill Press, 1999) and Praise In Which I Live and Move and Have My Being (Harvill Secker, 2012).
His last collection, 80 at 80, edited by Niall MacMonagle, was published in 2024. This collection, with an introduction by writer Colm Tóibín, was celebrated at a Poetry Ireland event in the Gate Theatre in October 2024 which Durcan, due to ill health, was unable to attend.
In his introduction to 80 at 80, Tóibín wrote about how he became enthralled by Durcan’s performances of his poems. “I loved the undercurrent of anarchy playing against moral seriousness ... and where the comedy was undermined by anger sometimes, or pure melancholy or raw quirkiness or a sympathy for pain or loss or loneliness.”
Tóibín described how in his poems about his father, his marriage or his solitude, Durcan interwove “a desolation, mixed with a fierce generosity of spirit, a hard-won sense of healing edged and tempered by an equally hard-won sense of loss and despondency”.
In the early 1980s, Durcan was a founder member of Aosdána, the association of artists and writers in Ireland, members of which are supported with an annual stipend.
He also held some academic roles. In 1990, he was writer-in-residence at Trinity College Dublin. Barrister and chair of Poetry Ireland John O’Donnell attended his poetry workshops at that time alongside poets including Enda Wyley. “He was more than a teacher; he was a spirit guide to us. He had tremendous empathy and sympathy for all of us writers,” says O’Donnell.
From 2004-2007, Durcan was Ireland Professor of Poetry, a cross-Border collaboration between the Arts Council in the Republic, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and three universities. In 2009, he was the Ireland Fund artist-in-residence at St Michael’s College at the University of Toronto, Canada. He was awarded honorary degrees from Trinity College Dublin (2009) and University College Dublin (UCD) (2011).
Throughout his adult life, Durcan had a high public profile in Ireland, Britain, eastern Europe and other parts of the world. In 2003, he gave a series of weekly addresses to the nation on Paul Durcan’s Diary on RTÉ Radio 1 programme Today with Pat Kenny, which many people remember fondly to this day. He also co-wrote the song In the Days Before Rock ‘N’ Roll on Van Morrison’s album Enlightenment and performed with Morrison on stage at some concerts.
Paul Durcan was born in Dublin and grew up in Dartmouth Square, Ranelagh, one of three children of John Durcan and Sheila MacBride Durcan. He attended Gonzaga College in Ranelagh. His father was a barrister who later became the Circuit Court judge on the western circuit. His maternal grandmother, Eileen Wilson, was the half-sister of Maud Gonne (MacBride) and his maternal grandfather was her husband, Major John MacBride’s older brother, Joseph. As a child, Paul spent a lot of time between the homes of both his parents in Co Mayo.
In 1962, Durcan began a degree in economics at UCD and was one of a group of young Irish poets which included Macdara Woods, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Michael Hartnett and Brian Lynch. His first publication was a collaborative booklet with Lynch called Endsville (1967). Lynch recalls how the two poets showed the work to Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh. “Kavanagh – who died later that year – said that he was passing his mantle on to Paul,” recalls Lynch. That stamp of approval from Kavanagh was a huge boost to the young poet.
In 1966, Durcan moved to London. When he returned to Dublin for a wedding in 1968, he met Nessa O’Neill (their meeting features in his poem, Nessa, previously on the Leaving Certificate syllabus). The couple married in London in March 1969 and had two children together, Sarah and Síabhra. In the 1982 RTÉ radio Documentary at One programme Paul Durcan’s Mayo, he speaks about being in London and writing poetry inspired by his formative experiences in Mayo.
In the 1970s, Paul, Nessa and their daughters returned to Ireland to live in Cork, during which time Durcan obtained a first class honours degree in archaeology and medieval history at University College Cork while looking after the couple’s children by day. When the couple separated in 1984, Durcan returned to live in Dublin.
In the 2007 Alan Gilsenan documentary, Paul Durcan: The Dark School (1944-1971), Durcan spoke about his complex and troubled relationship with his father and the life-threatening bout of osteomyelitis he suffered as a teenager. “I think that childhood illness affected him greatly and made him feel like even more of an outsider. There was always something of a mystery around Paul even though he was also a kindly, gentle soul and a wildly entertaining reader of his poems,” says Gilsenan.
In the documentary, Durcan also spoke about how he was involuntarily committed to a Dublin psychiatric hospital when in the second year of his studies at UCD. Subsequent time at an English hospital where he received electric shock treatment delayed his return to education and the experience had a lasting impact on Durcan.
In 2024, Durcan’s archive of notebooks, letters and cards was donated to the National Library of Ireland. Archivist and friend Catriona Crowe said at that event that Durcan had a surreal imagination. “He wrote very, very serious poetry that had a surreal and hilarious twist to it which was constantly surprising,” Crowe said.
“If ever you were out having dinner with him, he’d have his notebook and he might take it out and write down a line that struck him or something that came into his head.”
[ Paul Durcan: ‘Poetry was a gift that he loved to give others’Opens in new window ]
In many ways, being a poet was all consuming for Durcan. As well as being his main pursuit in life, it also defined his everyday interactions with fellow poets, neighbours, friends and random acquaintances. He would often write a poem spontaneously after an encounter and these poems were cherished by those he gave them to.
He also sometimes spoke about what he perceived as society’s disregard for poets – especially in conservative official Ireland. And a bad review or unsavoury interview would leave him seething with rage while a difference of opinion could result in a unreconcilable falling out. Yet, he was also kind, gentle and generous and a friend to many. Living latterly in Ringsend in Dublin, he also had a house in Dugort on Achill Island where he invited friends to stay. He spent the last number of years in a nursing home in Dublin.
Paul Durcan is survived by his former wife, Nessa, his daughters, Sarah and Síabhra, his son, Michael and nine grandchildren.
