Declan Kiberd (born 24 May 1951) is an Irish writer and scholar. He is known for his literary criticism of Irish literature in Irish and English, and his contributions to public cultural life.
In 2011, he was named one of Britain's top 300 intellectuals by The Observer, despite being Irish.[1]
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Kiberd was born in Dublin and went to Belgrove Primary School, where he was taught by the distinguished novelist John McGahern, before moving to St. Paul's College, Raheny. In 1969, he won an award to study Irish and English at Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a double first and a Gold Medal. He then went to Oxford where he took a DPhil under the late Richard Ellmann, the biographer of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats. He is the brother of journalist Damien Kiberd.
Professor Kiberd is the Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies and professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.[2] Before this he held the Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at University College, Dublin. He joined UCD as lecturer in Anglo-Irish literature in 1979. He taught English previously in the University of Kent at Canterbury (1976-7), and Irish in Trinity College Dublin (1977-9). He was appointed Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at UCD in 1997.
He has also been Director of the Yeats International Summer School (1985-7), patron of the Dublin Shaw Society (1995–2000), a columnist with the Irish Times (1985-7) and the Irish Press (1987–93), the presenter of the RTÉ arts programme, Exhibit A (1984-6), and a regular essayist and reviewer in the Irish Times, the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books and the New York Times.
Dr Kiberd is one of Ireland's foremost intellectuals. He was a friend of the late Palestine-born intellectual Edward Said, author of one of the most important books of post-colonial theory,Orientalism. Kiberd has lectured on Irish Literature in more than 30 countries.
He is best known for a major critical assessment of Anglo-Irish literature and culture, Inventing Ireland. The book gives a post colonial perspective on the Irish literary tradition, essentially arguing that the English "invented" their own view of Ireland by making it a subconscious dumping ground for a colonising world-view.
The importance of Inventing Ireland stems from its post-colonial treatment of a country where poetry and story-telling, in oral and written forms, acted as a crucial antidote to political and intellectual suppression by a dominant occupying imperial culture. The continuing political divisions in a partitioned country may have contributed to a fracturing of a clear post-colonial theory of Ireland, but it may be argued that there is no all-encompassing model for colonised nations.
Inventing Ireland is a long text, which includes careful assessment of neglected issues such as the importance of Irish women writers. It is a comprehensive look at practically every Irish author of international acclaim. In this sense it can serve as a reference book of no small note for the Irish literary canon.
1987 he co-edited Omnium Gatherum: Essays for Richard Ellman, which had been intended as a festschrift for Richard Ellmann, but became a memoriam when Ellmann died the same year.[3]
Another publication of note is Irish Classics, which was given the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 2002.
Kiberd also wrote the introduction to the Penguin Classic Annotated Student's Edition of Ulysses, which re-released the Bodley Head/Random House text of 1960/1961.
In 2009, Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everyday Living was published by Faber and Faber. It argues that Ulysses is a work of popular fiction, always intended for a mass readership, and examines the how Joyce's modernist masterpiece reflects and satirises aspects of daily life.[4]
Educated at Trinity College Dublin (First Class Degree with Gold Medal in English and Irish); D.Phil (Oxford).
Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama, Children's Literature and Post-colonial theory. Kiberd serves on the advisory board of the International Review of Irish Culture[5] which describes itself as influenced by the critical theory developed by the neo-Marxist intellectuals of the Frankfurt School.[6]
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In addition to Books' Prizes listed above, received President's Award for 1998-9 and Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship 2003-4.
