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John Broderick: 1924-1989
John Broderick was born in Athlone in 1924, and lived there for the greater part of his life. He understood the social makeup of central Ireland intimately, and developed into its most evocative commentator and severest critic. His novels are powerful and often shocking, fuelled by his own latent homosexuality and worsening alcoholism. The depictions of sexuality and Catholicism clashing in the Irish midlands ruffled many an establishment feather, and in the 1970s he moved to England to continue his astringent commentary on the rapidly shifting mores of the Irish scene. Amongst other issues, his work deals with the tensions caused by change within a largely static society, expressing this through tableaux and portraits drawn from his own vivid but entrapped life.
His first published novel was The Pilgrimage, published in the U.S. as The Chameleons (1961), and he went on to write The Fugitives (1962), The Waking of Willie Ryan (1965), the best-selling An Apology for Roses (1973), The London Irish (1979), A Prayer for Fair Weather (1984), The Flood (1987), and finally The Irish Magdalen (1991). Several of these titles were translated into French. In recognition of his work he was made a member of the Irish Academy of Letters in 1968, and in 1975 was given the Academy’s prestigious Annual Award for Literature. He died in Bath in 1989, and in 1999 Athlone UDC named a new street John Broderick Street in his honour. His definitive biography, Something in the Head: the Life and Work of John Broderick by Madeline Kingston, was published in 2004 by Lilliput Press.
Recent books:
The Pilgrimage (Lilliput Press: 2004)
The Waking of Willie Ryan (Lilliput Press: 2004)
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