Frank Delaney 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. He was born in Tipperary, Ireland.
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 over 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 showFrank Delaney in the early 1980s, which featured many cultural and literary personalities. Afterward, he 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's first book, James Joyce's Odyssey, was well received and became a best-seller in the UK and Ireland. He wrote and presented the six-part documentary series The Celts for the BBC, and wrote the accompanying book. He subsequently wrote five books of non-fiction, ten novels, one novella, and a number of short stories. He also edited many compilations of essays and poetry. Delaney wrote the screenplay for an adaptation of Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which starred Martin Clunes and was shown on ITV in Britain, and in the Masterpiece Theatre series in the United States. His articles were published by newspapers in United States, the UK and Ireland, including on the Op-ed pages of The New York Times. He was a frequent public speaker, and was a contributor and guest on National Public Radio programmes. On Bloomsday 2010, Delaney launched Re:Joyce, a series of short weekly podcasts that go page-by-page through James Joyce's Ulysses, discussing its allusions, historical context and references. These are housed on www.frankdelaney.com. Delaney lived in Ireland, England and the USA. He was married firstly to Eilish Kelliher, with whom he had three sons, Frank, Bryan and Owen. He subsequently was married to Susan Collier, Salley Vickers, and Diane Meyer, respectively.
