2020
Search results
Roderick Doyle (born 8 May 1958) [1] is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, eight books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories. Several of his books have been made into films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991.
- Overview
- Early life
- Barrytown novels
- Other writings
Roddy Doyle (born May 8, 1958, Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish author known for his unvarnished depiction of the working class in Ireland, particularly in his home city of Dublin. Since his literary debut in the 1980s, Doyle’s distinctively Irish settings, style, mood, and phrasing have made him a favorite fiction writer in his own country as well as ...
Doyle grew up in Kilbarrack, a suburb north of Dublin, in a housing estate that was part of a building boom after World War II. His parents, Rory and Ita (née Bolger) Doyle, worked as a printer and a secretary, respectively. Doyle attended a Christian Brothers school in Sutton, a suburb northeast of Dublin, on the coast. After majoring in English and geography at University College Dublin, he taught those subjects for 14 years at Greendale Community School, a local grade school. During the summer break of his third year of teaching, Doyle began writing seriously. In the early 1980s he wrote a political satire, Your Granny’s a Hunger Striker, but it was never published.
Britannica Quiz
Doyle published the first editions of his comedic novel The Commitments (1987) through his own company, King Farouk, until a London-based publisher took over. A raucous, often profane story of a group of young working-class Dubliners who form a soul band, it was the first installment of Doyle’s soon-to-be internationally acclaimed Barrytown novels—so called because all the novels are set in a fictional north Dublin suburb called Barrytown. The series centers on the ups and downs of the never-say-die Rabbitte family, who temper the bleakness of life in their housing estate with familial love and understanding. A distinctive feature of Doyle’s storytelling is his use of local idioms and long stretches of dialogue instead of dense narrative. The Commitments was made into a hit film in 1991, with Alan Parker as director. Doyle cowrote the screenplay, which won a BAFTA Award in 1992.
Doyle’s Barrytown novels center on the ups and downs of the never-say-die Rabbitte family, who live in the fictional working-class Dublin suburb of Barrytown.
Doyle’s fourth novel, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993), won the Booker Prize. Set in the 1960s in a fictional community similar to Barrytown, the book examines the cruelty inflicted upon children by other children. The protagonist, 10-year-old Paddy Clarke, fears his classmates’ ostracism, especially after the breakup of his parents’ marriage. In 1994 Doyle wrote the BBC miniseries Family, which generated heated controversy throughout Ireland for its raw depiction of topics that were regarded as taboo. The program shed harsh light on a family’s struggle with domestic violence and alcoholism and offered a grim portrait of life in a housing estate, the same setting Doyle had used in the comedic Barrytown novels. The series earned Doyle a BAFTA Award nomination for best drama serial. The novels The Woman Who Walked into Doors (1996) and its sequel, Paula Spencer (2006), are told through the unflinching perspective of Paula Spencer, a working-class woman who is in a violent marriage when the first book begins. In 2023 Doyle’s publisher announced a third book in the Paula Spencer series, The Women Behind the Door (2024).
Exclusive academic rate for students! Save 67% on Britannica Premium.
Learn More
A Star Called Henry (1999) centers on an Irish Republican Army (IRA) soldier named Henry Smart and his adventures during the Easter Rising in 1916. Smart’s further adventures are detailed in Oh, Play That Thing (2004), which follows him as he journeys through the United States, and The Dead Republic (2010), which chronicles his return to Ireland. In Smile (2017) a lonely middle-aged man looks back on his life, especially his troubled childhood. Doyle’s next novel, Love (2020), follows two old friends as they spend a night drinking and looking back at their lives.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- (128.7K)
- May 8, 1958
- Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.
- The Commitments (The Barrytown Trilogy, #1; Jimmy Rabbitte, #1)
- The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (Paula Spencer, #1)
- A Star Called Henry (The Last Roundup, #1)
Mar 16, 2020 · Learn about the acclaimed Irish writer's works for page, stage and screen, from The Commitments to Rosie, and his Facebook posts as Two Pints. Find out how he revisited The Snapper, wrote about homelessness, and changed his style for Love.
May 19, 2024 · Roddy Doyle: The hate mail and death threats started in the spring of 1994. Thirty years after Family aired on RTÉ, Ireland has changed in many ways but domestic violence is still an ugly...
Sep 20, 2024 · The Irish writer Roddy Doyle was riding a wave of fame for his novels The Commitments and 'Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha', when he first wrote the character of Paula Spencer. The 1994 TV drama she featured ...
Roddy Doyle has 125 books on Goodreads with 250086 ratings. Roddy Doyle’s most popular book is Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.
