Frank Delaney

Francis James Joseph Raphael Delaney (24 October 1942 – 21 February 2017) was an Irish novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He was the author of The New York Times best-seller Ireland, the non-fiction book Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea and many other works of fiction, non-fiction and collections.

Early life Delaney was born in Thomastown, County Tipperary, Ireland, on 24 October 1942. His father, Edward, was the principal of the national school in Thomastown; his mother, Elizabeth Josephine O'Sullivan, was a teacher at the school.

Broadcasting career Delaney began working as a newsreader for the Irish state radio and television network RTÉ in 1970. In the early 1970s, he became a news reporter for the BBC in Dublin, and covered an intense period of violence known as the Troubles. After five years of reporting on the violence, he moved to London to work in arts broadcasting. In 1978, he created the weekly Bookshelf programme for BBC Radio 4, which covered books, writers and the business of publishing. Over the next five-and-a-half years he interviewed more than 1,400 authors, including Anthony Burgess, John Updike, Margaret Atwood, Christopher Isherwood and Stephen King.

On television, Delaney wrote and presented for Omnibus, the BBC's weekly arts series. He served as the Literature Director of the Edinburgh Festival in 1980, and hosted his own talk show Frank Delaney in the early 1980s, which featured many cultural and literary personalities. He later created and presented Word of Mouth, the BBC's radio programme about language, as well as a variety of radio and television documentaries including specials on James Joyce, Robert Graves, Ernest Hemingway in Paris, and the Shakespeare industry. He presented The Book Show on the Sky News satellite channel for many years.

Writing career Delaney said in a 2014 interview that he had wanted to be a novelist since childhood. “I've always relished the power of the tale,” he said, “how it grabs us and then absorbs us, and casts a spell over us, and teaches us." His articles were published by newspapers in United States, the UK and Ireland, including on the Op-ed pages of The New York Times. www.frankdelaney.com)