Aosdána member Padraic Fiacc passes away

The Arts Council has expressed its regret at the death of poet and Aosdána member Pádraic Fiacc.

Sheila Pratschke, Chair of the Arts Council said, “Padraic Fiacc was a poet of international and national significance, his work capturing the complex and layered experience of the Irish diaspora. His poetry is remarkable in its range and depth, and will undoubtedly be read and studied for generations to come.”

Pádraic was born in Belfast in 1924 and raised in New York, he returned to Belfast in 1946. His first collection of poetry, Woe to the Boy, won the AE Memorial Prize in 1957; later collections included By the Black Stream (1969), Odour of Blood (1973), Nights in the Bad Place (1977), Missa Terriblis (1986), Ruined Pages (1994), Red Earth (1996) and Semper Vacare (1999). He edited The Wearing of the Black, a 1974 anthology about Northern Ireland that provoked significant public debate. He received Arts Council bursaries in 1976 and 1980, and in 1981, a Poetry Ireland Award. He lived in Belfast.