Declan Kiberd
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His niece Evanna Lynch is an actress known for her role as Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films.
In 2019 Kiberd was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Early life and education
Kiberd was born in Dublin. His brother Damien is a journalist. Kiberd attended Belgrove Primary School in Clontarf, where he was taught by the novelist John McGahern, before moving to St Paul's College in Raheny. In 1969, he won an award to study Irish and English at Trinity College Dublin, where he was elected a Scholar and got a double first and a Gold Medal. He then went to Linacre College, Oxford, where he took a DPhil under the Joycean biographer Richard Ellmann.
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Academic career
Eleven years after its foundation, Kiberd taught English at University of Kent in Canterbury (1976–77). He then taught Irish in Trinity College Dublin for two years (1977–79).
Kiberd joined University College Dublin (UCD) in 1979 and remained on its staff until 2011. He was UCD lecturer in Anglo-Irish literature from 1979, appointed chair of Anglo-Irish literature and drama in 1997 and held this until 2011, at which time he moved to the U.S.
In 2011 Kiberd became the Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies and an English professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Research interests and supervision
His research interests are primarily Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama (in particular Joyce and Synge), postcolonial theory and children's literature; the latter he was responsible for introducing to the UCD curriculum in 2008.
He was close to the Palestinian-born Edward Said, who wrote Orientalism, considered an influential contribution to postcolonial theory. Since 2016, he has been at work on a short monograph about Beckett.
Other work
Kiberd has been a columnist with The Irish Times (1985–87) and The Irish Press (1987–93), presenter of the RTÉ arts programme, Exhibit A (1984–86), and a regular essayist and reviewer in The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times. He occasionally writes short pieces about culture for The Irish Times. He has contributed approximately 5,000 words to the London Review of Books over two pieces published in 2000 and 2001, the latter on a William Trevor short story collection and the former on a book by his UCD colleague Angela Bourke.
Kiberd serves on the advisory board of the International Review of Irish Culture, which describes itself as influenced by the critical theory developed by the neo-Marxist intellectuals of the Frankfurt School.
In addition, he has the following credits:
- Visiting Lecturer in more than 30 countries (1982–present)
- Director of the Yeats International Summer School (1985–87)
- Patron of the Dublin Shaw Society (1995–2000)
- Member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission and Cultural Relations Committee (1995–2002)
- Chair of the Public Libraries and Arts Government Commission (1996–99)
- President's Award (1998–99)
- Member of the Forum on Future of Broadcasting (2002)
- Elected member of the Royal Irish Academy (2003)
- Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship (2003–04)
- Appointed to the new board of the Abbey Theatre