DEREK MAHON
Derek Mahon
Born 23 November 1941 (age 66)
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Occupation Poet
Journalist
Nationality Northern Irish
Genres Poetry
Literary movement Modernism
Influences Samuel Beckett, W.B. Yeats, Louis MacNeice, W.H. Auden
Influenced Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, Eamon Grennan
Derek Mahon (born 23 November 1941) is a Northern Irish poet. He was born in
Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Mahon was born the only child of Ulster Protestant working class parents. His
father worked at Harland and Wolff while his mother worked at a local Flax Mill.
During his childhood, he claims he was something of a solitary dreamer,
comfortable with his own company yet aware of the world around him.He became
interested in literature from an early age. He attended Skegoneil Primary school
and then the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. At the institute he
encountered fellow students who shared his interest in literature and poetry.
The school produced a magazine to which Mahon produced some of his early poems.
According to the critic Hugh Haughton his early poems were highly fluent and
extraordinary for a person so young.
Mahon pursued third level studies at Trinity College Dublin where he edited
Icarus, and formed many friendships with writers such as Michael Longley, Eavan
Boland and Brendan Kennelly. He became more aware of the world around him and
started to mature as a poet. He left Trinity in 1965 to take up studies in the
Sorbonne in Paris.
After leaving the Sorbonne in 1966 he worked his way through Canada and the
United States. In 1967 he published his first collection of poems Night Crossing.
He taught in a school in Dublin and worked in London as a free lance journalist.
He currently lives in Kinsale, Co. Cork. On March 23, 2007 he was awarded the
David Cohen Prize for Literature.
Derek Mahon
Born 23 November 1941 (age 66)
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Occupation Poet
Journalist
Nationality Northern Irish
Genres Poetry
Literary movement Modernism
Influences Samuel Beckett, W.B. Yeats, Louis MacNeice, W.H. Auden
Influenced Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, Eamon Grennan
Derek Mahon (born 23 November 1941) is a Northern Irish poet. He was born in
Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Mahon was born the only child of Ulster Protestant working class parents. His
father worked at Harland and Wolff while his mother worked at a local Flax Mill.
During his childhood, he claims he was something of a solitary dreamer,
comfortable with his own company yet aware of the world around him.He became
interested in literature from an early age. He attended Skegoneil Primary school
and then the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. At the institute he
encountered fellow students who shared his interest in literature and poetry.
The school produced a magazine to which Mahon produced some of his early poems.
According to the critic Hugh Haughton his early poems were highly fluent and
extraordinary for a person so young.
Mahon pursued third level studies at Trinity College Dublin where he edited
Icarus, and formed many friendships with writers such as Michael Longley, Eavan
Boland and Brendan Kennelly. He became more aware of the world around him and
started to mature as a poet. He left Trinity in 1965 to take up studies in the
Sorbonne in Paris.
After leaving the Sorbonne in 1966 he worked his way through Canada and the
United States. In 1967 he published his first collection of poems Night Crossing.
He taught in a school in Dublin and worked in London as a free lance journalist.
He currently lives in Kinsale, Co. Cork. On March 23, 2007 he was awarded the
David Cohen Prize for Literature.