Michael McLaverty Biography

Irish novelist and short-story writer, born in Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, educated at Queen's University, Belfast. McLaverty taught mathematics in Belfast, becoming headmaster of St Thomas's School on the Falls Road. He has published several novels and collections of short stories. In his first novel, Call My Brother Back (1939), he explores the attitudes of Ulster people towards the land against the background of the sectarian violence which accompanied the creation of Northern Ireland. Subsequent novels include Lost Fields (1941) and In This Thy Day (1945), both of which portray the conflicts and loyalties of marginalized rural families. His first collection of short stories, The Game Cock and Other Stories (1947), illustrates McLaverty's belief in a simple and unpretentious prose style which develops from the nature of its subject matter. He rarely engages large political or social issues directly. His Collected Short Stories were published in 1978. McLaverty has been noted for the encouragement he gave to several ‘younger’ Ulster writers, such as Seamus Heaney and John McGahern.