Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1989-1990 (Creation)
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Extent and medium
3 items
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Michael Curtin was born in Limerick in 1942 and educated at the Sexton Street Christian Brothers’ school. In the 1960s, having spent five years working in a cement plant, he emigrated to London to try his hand as a writer. Finding no success, he returned to Limerick, where the broadcaster David Hanly encouraged him to continue writing. Several of Curtin’s short stories were subsequently published in the New Irish Writing column in the Irish Press and one of them took first prize at Listowel Writers’ Week in 1972. His first novel, The Self-Made Men, a partly autobiographical account of immigrant life in England, was published in 1980 by André Deutsch. Five further novels followed: The Replay (1981), The League Against Christmas (1989), The Plastic Tomato Cutter (1991), The Cove Shivering Club (1996), and Sing! (2001). Many of Curtin’s stories are set in his native city of Limerick and are characterised by a darkly comic tone, which became Curtin’s trademark. Michael Curtin died in his native city in April 2016.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Letters from producer Marie Therese Duggan, Cathal Black Film & Video Productions, ‘St Nessans’, Sandyford Village, Sandyford, county Dublin, to Michael Curtin, 93 O’Connell Street, Limerick, relating to the prospect of adapting The League Against Christmas for film and the subsequent abandonment of the plan. Also see P19/1/2.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
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Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- English