Robert Anthony Welch

Robert Anthony Welch (25 November 1947 – 3 February 2013) was an Irish author and scholar.

Biography

Robert Anthony Welch was an emeritus professor of English and former dean of the faculty at the University of Ulster. He joined the university in 1984 as professor of English and head of the School of English, Media, and Theatre Studies, having previously taught at the School of English, University of Leeds, and the University of Ife in Nigeria.

He was born in Cork, Ireland and was educated at University College Cork and later the University of Leeds. He earned his master's degree at Cork University under Sean Lucy and then went to study for his Ph.D. under Yeats scholar Norman Jeffares at Leeds University, where he also held a lectureship in English. His research focused on the interaction between Gaelic tradition and Irish poetry in English, a field in which he achieved wide recognition and which was given special mention in the citation that led to his election to membership of the Royal Irish Academy in 2008.

Welch was married to Angela O'Riordan, with whom he had four children, including theatre director Rachel O'Riordan. A novelist and poet as well as a critic and editor, Welch published '' The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature'' in 1996, a book that appeared on the bestsellers list.

Poetry

Welch's first published volume of poetry was ''Muskerry'' (1991, Dedalus Press), followed by ''Secret Societies'' (1997, Dedalus Press) and ''The Blue Formica Table'' (1999, Dedalus Press), and ''The Evergreen Road'' (2004, Lagan Press). A new collection titled ''Constanza'' was published in July 2010. In 2009, Welch received the O'Connor Literary Award in Monasterevin, County Kildare at the Gerard Manley Hopkins summer school.

Fiction

Welch's fiction includes ''The Kilcolman Notebook'' (1994, Brandon Press), followed by ''Tearmann'' (in Irish, Coisceim, 1997) and ''Groundwork'' (1997, Blackstaff Press) which was named in ''The New York Times Book Review'' as one of the notable books of 1998 and was translated and serialised for Slovakian national radio. ''Japhy Ryder: Ar Shleasaibh na Mangartan'', a book of biographical and critical studies, won the prize at Oireachteas, Ireland's premier Irish language cultural festival, in 2011.

Two stories from a collection titled ''The Trap of their Hexes'' appeared in ''The Dublin Review'', and another story from the collection appeared in the ''Irish Pages''. ''Kicking the Black Mamba: Life, Death, Alcohol and Death'', a memoir of his son Egan who drowned in 2007, was published in September 2012 by Darton, Longman and Todd. The book prompted significant attention from paper, internet, radio and television media on its release and posthumously achieved the number -one position among RTÉ best sellers. It was called a "masterpiece of memoir-writing" by reviewer Paddy Kenoe.

Criticism

Welch's critical work began in 1980 with ''Irish Poetry from Moore to Yeats'' (Colin Smythe), which charted for the first time the achievements of the major 19th-century Irish poets leading to the work of William Butler Yeats. This was followed by other work, including ''A History of Verse Translation from the Irish: 1789–1897'' (1988, Colin Smythe Ltd), ''Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing'' (1993, Routledge). Welch's history of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin was published in 1999 to mark the centenary of the first productions of what became the Irish National Theatre. This was titled ''A History of the Abbey Theatre 1899–1999: Form and Pressure'' (1999, Oxford University Press). He edited for Penguin Books

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