J. P. Donleavy

James Patrick Donleavy was born in New York of Irish parents. He came to Dublin after serving in the Navy during the Second World War to study at Trinity College. A central figure in Dublin's postwar creative Bohemia, Donleavy is an award-wining painter, writer and playwright. His works include, among many others, the novels The Ginger Man and The Onion Eaters, the plays Fairy Tales of New York and The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B and the story collection Meet my Maker the Mad Molecule. J. P. Donleavy became an Irish citizen and lived in Levington Park, Co. Westmeath, until his death in 2017.