Hugh Leonard

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Hugh Leonard (real name John Keyes Byrne) (born 1926) is an Irish dramatist and journalist. His first play, The Big Birthday Suit, was produced by the Abbey Theatre in 1956. Since then, he has been a prolific playwright, with at least 18 plays to his name. His Selected Plays of Hugh Leonard appeared in 1992. He has also written two volumes of autobiography, Home Before Night (1979) and Out After Dark (1989). Some of his essays and journalism are collected in Leonard's Last Book (1978) and A Peculiar People and Other Foibles (1979). Currently he writes a humorous monthly Article, titled "the Curmudgeon", for the Sunday Independent Newspaper. He has a passion for cats, and restaurants, and an abhorrance of Gay Byrne.

Leonard received the Tony Award in 1977 for the play "Da", a supernatural comedy based in large measure on his own youth and his adoptive father. Hugh Leonard has now retired from writing his Curmudgeon column in the Sunday Independent. In an interview by Brendan O Connor (Sunday Independent 12/11/06) he was asked by O Connor if he was upset that Gay Byrne was now writing the column. His reply was, "I'd be more upset if he was any good at it".