Tributes paid following death of Kilkenny playwright Thomas Kilroy
Renowned playwright Thomas Kilroy, who has died aged 89
Tributes have been paid to one of the country’s most renowned playwrights.
Eighy-nine-year-old Kilkenny writer, Thomas Kilroy passed away on Thursday.
As well as plays like The Death and Resurrection of Mr. Roche, The O’Neill, Double Cross and The Shape of Metal, the Aosdána member wrote a number of screenplays for television and film. His novel, The Big Chapel was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1971.
Kilroy, who was born in Callan in 1934, also served on the board of the Abbey Theatre, where many of his plays were performed. After graduating from UCD, he became a schoolteacher, then a headmaster, returning to UCD as a lecturer before going on to dedicate himself to writing.
His dramatic works were often reflections of Ireland and the human condition. In an interview in 2001, Kilroy describes his own work as "In-your-face realism. My work is highly stylized," he reflected during an interview with Thierry Dubost for a French publication, "a kind of theatre of artifice, one which may use realistic elements but which in effect asks its audience to suspend its sense of realism."
Kilroy was also Professor Emeritus of Modern English and the University of Galway.
Actor Stephen Rea, theatre director Patrick Mason and sculptor John Behan were among those who attended the funeral at Shannon Crematorium on Sunday.
Kilroy’s many awards include the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Heinemann Award for Literature, the AIB Literary Prize and an Irish PEN Award. He was honoured with a special Lifetime Achievement Award at the ESB/Irish Times Theatre Awards in 2004.
Chair of the Arts Council Professor Kevin Rafter was among those who paid tribute to the writer.
“The passing of Thomas Kilroy will be keenly felt by theatre and literature lovers worldwide. He was one of the foremost theatre artists this country has ever produced. He was known for his searing depictions of Irish society and for revealing uncomfortable truths through luminous, beautiful writing. His was a very large canvas which encompassed grand historical narrative from both Ireland and overseas.”
