Richard Power (writer)

Richard Power (1928, Dublin – 12 February 1970, Bray) was an Irish novelist and script-writer.

Richard Power
Born1928
Dublin, Ireland
Died1970 (aged 41–42)
OccupationNovelist
NationalityIrish

Early life and education

Power was born in 1928 into a family of Waterford lineage and raised in Naas, Co Kildare, where his father was a banker. Educated local in Nass, he moved to Dublin studying at both UCD and Trinity College Dublin and took two degrees, one in commerce and the other a dual external degree in English and Irish.[1]

He entered the Civil Service in 1945 and was employed in the Department of Local Government.

Writing career

In 1958, Power's career began in teaching. From 1958 to 1960, Power taught at State University in Iowa.[2]

Power's Irish-language novel Ull i mBarr an Ghéagáin (1959) won the Gaelic Book Club Award. After his death it was published in an English translation by his brother Victor Power as Apple on the Treetop (1980). In 1964 his novel The Land of Youth was published.

Power wrote one-act plays, Saoirse (Abbey 5 November 1955), and An Oidhreacht (Abbey 17 March 1958). He also wrote scripts for the Irish broadcaster RTE.

Power's most notable and critically acclaimed novel was The Hungry Grass (1969), which covered in close detail the last days of a village priest, Fr Tom Conroy.[3] His novel The Mohair Boys was unfinished at his death in Bray in 1970.

He died only months after the publication of "The Hungry Grass" 10 days before his 42nd birthday.

In 2016 "The Hungry Grass" was reprinted and hailed as a "forgotten classic of Irish literature" and "truly masterful" because of the "sympathetic glimpse into the inner life of Father Tom Conroy" a character of depth and complexity.[4][5]

Works
  • Úll i mBarr an Ghéagáin (Baile Atha Cliath: Sáirséal agus Dill 1959) (also trans. by Victor Power as Apple on the Treetop (Dublin: Poolbeg 1980)
  • The Land of Youth (New York: Dial Press 1964; London: Secker & Warburg 1966)
  • The Hungry Grass (London: The Bodley Head 1969) ISBN 0-370-01413-8; (reprinted London: Apollo Library 2016) ISBN 978-1-78497-741-2

Also: ‘Poems translated from the Irish,' Poetry Ireland, 19 (October 1952), pp.7-8; ‘Peasants: A Story,' The Bell, XVIII, 7 (Dec. 1952), pp.424-30; ‘An Outpost of Rome,’ The Dubliner, Vol. 3, 1 (Spring 1964), pp. 14–26. See also extract from The Mohair Boys [unfinished novel] in The Irish Press (27 February 1971)

Water Wisdom (short public service film, directed by Power) (Department of Local Government, 1962)

References
  1. "Richard Power: 'The Hungry Grass' author a great loss to Irish letters".
  2. "Richard Power".
  3. "The Hungry Grass by Richard Power review: Last days of a doomed everyman".
  4. "Forgotten classic that paints a colourful picture of parish life".
  5. "The Hungry Grass by Richard Power review: Last days of a doomed everyman".
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