Frank Delaney

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Frank Delaney (Francis James Joseph Raphael Delaney) was an Irish novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He was born on 24 October 1942 in Thomastown, County Tipperary, Ireland, to a principal father and a teacher mother. He began his career as a newsreader for RTÉ in 1970, then worked for the BBC in Dublin during the Troubles, before moving to London to pursue arts broadcasting. In 1978 he created the Bookshelf on BBC Radio 4, where he interviewed more than 1,400 authors. He wrote and presented for Omnibus, served as Literature Director of the Edinburgh Festival in 1980, and hosted his own talk show, Frank Delaney. He later created Word of Mouth, a BBC radio program about language, and made many radio and TV documentaries, including series on James Joyce.

Delaney always wanted to be a novelist. His first book, James Joyce's Odyssey (1981), was a best-seller in the UK and Ireland. He wrote The Celts (1987) for the BBC and published ten novels, including Ireland and Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show, as well as non-fiction such as Simple Courage. He also edited collections of essays and poetry and wrote the screenplay for Goodbye, Mr. Chips (2002) for ITV and Masterpiece Theatre. His articles appeared in newspapers in the US, the UK and Ireland, including The New York Times, and he spoke frequently on NPR. In 2010 he launched Re:Joyce, a series of podcasts that discussed Joyce's Ulysses page by page. Delaney lived in Ireland, England and the United States. He was married four times: first to Eilish Kelliher, with whom he had three sons (Frank, Bryan, Owen), then to Susan Collier, Salley Vickers and Dana Mayer. He died on 21 February 2017 in Litchfield County, Connecticut, at age 74.