Brian Coffey

Brian Coffey was born in Dun Laoghaire and studied Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry at Universtiy College Dublin. Together with Denis Devlin he published his first volume of poetry in 1930. In 1933, Three Poems was published by Jeanette Monnier in Paris. A friend of Thomas MacGreevey's, he also met Samuel Beckett, who admired his poetry, and James Joyce. Prevented by the outbreak of war to return to Paris and complete his doctoral thesis in Philosophy, Coffey had to wait until 1947 to receive his Doctorate. After a few years as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St. Louis University, Missouri, he returned to England where he worked as a Mathematics teacher and started his own printing press, Advent Books. In 1991, Dedalus press published Poems and Versions, 1929-1990. Brian Coffey died in England in 1995.