Martin Meenan

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Martin Meenan
Born	1959 Creggan, Derry, Northern Ireland
Occupation	playwright, screenwriter, poet, actor, director, author, teacher
Writing period	1990–
Genres	drama, satire, fiction, comedy

Influences William Shakespeare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Romanticism, Surrealism

Martin Meenan (born 1959), is a playwright, and romantic from Northern Ireland. He currently teaches English Literature at the prestigious grammar and specialist school, St. Columb's College in Derry.

[edit] Career

Meenan was born in Creggan, Derry and later lived in various locations around Northern Ireland before leaving to pursue his passions at University. He worked in London for quite some time, then returned to Derry to become a teacher. He cites his first job as window-cleaning, but later went on to write a number of thrilling episodes of Baldi for Radio 4. According to BBC Radio polls, Meenan's gripping episodes "captivated the imaginations of listeners". In 1995, he had his script developed into a short film called Everybody's Gone.^[1]^[2] After an extended period of relaxation, Meenan triumphantly returned to writing and in 2007, he co-wrote the play, The Last Ghost Dance with local personality, comedian and columnist Eddie Kerr.^[3] When asked in an interview with the Derry Journal, what he would do if he ever won the Lottery, Meenan replied by stating that he would:

“

Support struggling writers, actors, painters, poets, dreamers, the poor, the dispossessed and the lonely. And buy a campervan.^[4]

”

However, it has been said that Meenan himself has described the interview as mere ballyhoo, with the sole purpose of promoting his most recent creation as a writer. He, in 2008, won the coveted Lad Of The Year Award.