Acclaimed Irish playwright Thomas Kilroy passes away aged 89

Acclaimed playwright, author and novelist Thomas Kilroy passed away last week at 89 years of age.

Kilroy was a  member of Aosdána and former professor of English at the University of Galway, a post from which he resigned in 1989 to concentrate on writing. Kilroy also served on the board of the Abbey Theatre, where many of his plays were performed, having begun. his early career as a play editor there.

In the 1980s, he sat on the board of the famed Field Day Theatre Company in Derry, founded by playwright Brian Friel and actor Rea and was Director of its touring company.

Kilroy's plays include Double Cross, Talbot’s Box, Tea Sex and Shakespeare, The O’Neill and The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde.

He received a special tribute award at the Irish Times Theatre Awards in 2004 and was presented with the PEN Ireland Cross award for his contribution to literature in 2008.

In March 2011, Kilroy donated his personal archive to the University of Galway. The Thomas Kilroy Collection, was deposited at the University's James Hardiman Library.

Kilroy addressed the launch event in March of that year, which was attended by, amongst others, Brian Friel and the future President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins

Born in Callan, Co Kilkenny, in 1934, Kilroy attended St Kieran’s College, where he captained the senior hurling team in 1952. He obtained a degree in education from University College Dublin.

Kilroy's 1968 breakthrough play, The Death and Resurrection of Mr Roche has been described a modernising Irish theatre, being the first Irish play to have a gay figure as a central character.

His only novel, The Big Chapel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1971.

Thomas Kilroy was appointed professor of English at University of Galway in 1978, a position from which he resigned form in 1989.

He spent the later years of his life in Mayo and was a member of the Irish Academy of Letters, the Royal Society of Literature, and Aosdána.

Among Kilroy's  friends and family in attendance at the funeral on Sunday were actor Stephen Rea (who knew Kilroy from his time at the Field Day Theatre company), theatre director Patrick Mason and sculptor John Behan. The funeral took place at the Shannon Crematorium.