Background

James Plunkett was born on May 21, 1920, in Dublin, Ireland. He was the son of a chauffeur.

Education

James Plunkett attended Synge Street Christian Brothers School. At the age of 17, he left school. He later studied violin and viola at the Dublin College of Music.

Career

James Plunkett left school at the age of seventeen to become a clerk for the Dublin Gas Company and soon joined the Workers’ Union of Ireland, becoming a secretary for that trade union in 1946. But he also had musical inclinations, having learned to play the violin and viola, and earned money performing with the Radio Eireann Symphony Orchestra. Although he felt his musical talents were not sufficient to make a career out of playing, his connections with the radio eventually led to work there. He was already writing in the 1940s, having published stories in magazines, and some of his work was aired on Radio Eireann.

He became assistant head of drama there in 1955 and during the 1960s was program head of features for Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), where he directed and produced many programs, including his own. During the 1950s he wrote a number of radio plays, including Dublin Fusilier (1952), Mercy (1953), Homecoming (1954), Big Jim (1954), and Farewell Harper (1956); Big Jim eventually evolved into the play The Risen People, which was performed at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in 1958 and later became the basis for Plunkett’s international bestselling novel, Strumpet City.

Plunkett also wrote two other novels, Farewell Companions (1977) and The Circus Animals (1990), though they did not attain the same blockbuster status as his debut novel. However, his television drama When Do You Die, Friend? (1966) was highly acclaimed, as was his documentary Bird’s Eye View, which he later turned into the book The Gems She Wore: A Book of Irish Places (1972). Plunkett was also the author of the critically acclaimed short-story collection The Trusting and the Maimed, and Other Irish Stories (1955), as well as his Collected Short Stories (1977).

His later work focused mainly on television and includes That Solitary Man (1979), The Eagles and the Trumpets (1984), and One Man in His Time (1985). Plunkett resigned from RTE in 1985.

Achievements

• James Plunkett was best known as the author of Strumpet City, a historical novel. His contributions as a writer were recognized in 1993 when he won the Butler Literary Award from the Irish-American Cultural Institute. The James Plunkett Short Story Award was established in his honor.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Trusting and the Maimed

    (An early collection of stories by James Plunkett.)

    1955
  • Strumpet City 1969
  • Farewell Companions 1977
  • The Circus Animals 1990

Membership

James Plunkett was an honorary life member of the Irish Writers' Union. He was also a member of Aosdana.

• 

  Irish Writers' Union , Ireland

Connections

James Plunkett was married to Valerie Koblitz. In 1986 she died. The couple had four children.

late spouse:

Valerie Koblitz

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2011