Eoin McNamee (1961 in

Kilkeel Kilkeel () is a small town and Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish on the Irish Sea coast of County Down, Northern Ireland. It is the main fishing port on the Down coast, and its harbour is home to the largest fishing fleet in Northern Irel ...

, County Down, Northern Ireland) is a writer of novels and screenplays.

Career

McNamee studied Law at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

and then worked in various occupations besides being a full-time writer. He has taught at the Sligo Institute of Technology and at

Maynooth University Maynooth University (MU) (), is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland. Maynooth University was formerly known as National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM; ). It was Ireland ...

. He is Director of the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre and Director of the M.Phil. in Creative Writing at

. He lives in

County Sligo County Sligo ( , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region and is part of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. Sligo is the administrative capital and largest town in ...

Works

McNamee has written nineteen novels and six Young Adult novels. He has also written three thrillers under the John Creed pseudonym and several screenplays. His novels include: * ''Resurrection Man'' (London, Picador, 1994) - detailed the bloodletting of the

Ulster Volunteer Force The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalism, Ulster loyalist paramilitary group based in Northern Ireland. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former Royal Ulster Rifles soldier from North ...

gang, the Shankill Butchers * ''The Blue Tango'' (London, Faber & Faber, 2001) - examined the murder of Lancelot Curran's 19-year-old daughter, Patricia Curran; nominated for Booker * ''The Ultras'' (Faber & Faber, 2004) - about the killing of

Robert Nairac Captain Robert Laurence Nairac (31 August 1948 – 15 May 1977) was a British Army officer in the Grenadier Guards. He was abducted by republicans from a pub in South Armagh, during an undercover operation he was undertaking, and killed by th ...

* ''12:23'' (Faber & Faber, 2008) - based on the final days of

Diana, Princess of Wales Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William, ...

(Faber & Faber, June 2007) * ''Orchid Blue'' (Faber & Faber, 2010) - looked at the last hanging in Ireland, in Crumlin Road gaol, of

Robert McGladdery Robert Andrew McGladdery (18 October 193520 December 1961) was the last person to be executed in Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland. He was convicted of the murder of Pearl Gamble, aged 19, whom he had battered, strangled and stabbed ...

for the murder of 19-year-old Pearl Gamble, near

Newry Newry (; ) is a City status in Ireland, city in Northern Ireland, standing on the Newry River, Clanrye river in counties County Down, Down and County Armagh, Armagh. It is near Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, the border with the ...

, in 1961 * ''Blue Is the Night'' (Faber & Faber, 2014) - deals with the involvement of Lancelot Curran in a murder trial in Northern Ireland of the late 1940s. ''Blue Is the Night'' won the 2015 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year. * ''The Vogue'' (2019) * ''The Bureau'' (2025) He has written two

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...

s: * ''The Last of Deeds'' (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, 1989), which was shortlisted for the 1989 Irish Times/Aer Lingus Award for Irish Literature, * ''Love in History'' (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1992). He has also written the Navigator trilogy, for children, '' The Navigator'', ''City of Time'' and ''The Frost Child''. McNamee commenced writing another series for children, the first book of which is ''The Ring of Five'', and the second of which is ''The Unknown Spy'', both of which are based on plotting and espionage. He has also written a series under the pseudonym John Creed: * ''The Sirius Crossing'' (Faber & Faber, 2003) * ''The Day of the Dead'' (Faber & Faber, 2004) * ''Black Cat Black Dog'' (Faber & Faber, 2007) These feature the character of intelligence officer Jack Valentine.

Screenwriting

The film version of '' Resurrection Man'', for which he wrote the script, was released in 1998. That same year, McNamee also wrote the script for '' I Want You'', a crime film directed by

Michael Winterbottom Michael Winterbottom (born 29 March 1961) is an English film director. He began his career working in British television before moving into features. Three of his films—''Welcome to Sarajevo'', ''Wonderland (1999 film), Wonderland'' and ''24 ...

. He has written for the television series '' An Bronntanas'', '' Red Rock'', ''

Hinterland Hinterland is a German word meaning the 'land behind' a city, a port, or similar. Its use in English was first documented by the geographer George Chisholm in his ''Handbook of Commercial Geography'' (1888). Originally the term was associated wi ...

'' and the Netflix series '' Vikings: Valhalla''.

Critical reception

Fellow crime writer Liam McIlvanney described his writing as having the "cadenced majesty of McCarthy or DeLillo, but the vision it enacts is all his own". Mark Lawson described his work as having "a distinctive prose tone, its signature the omission, for purposes of staccato rhythm, of verbs".

Awards

He was awarded the Macauley Fellowship for Irish Literature in 1990. In 2010, he won the

Richard Imison Award The Richard Imison Award is an award which recognises the best radio drama, generally by a writer new to the industry, and is now awarded as part of the BBC Audio Drama Awards. It was established in 1994 and commemorates the life and work of Richa ...

for radio drama. In 2015, he won the

Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award The Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award is an annual award for Irish authors of fiction, established in 1995. It was previously known as the Kerry Ingredients Book of the Year Award (1995–2000), the Kerry Ingredients Irish Fiction Award ...

for ''Blue is the Night''. In 2002, writing as John Creed he won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award for ''The Sirius Crossing''. ''The Vogue'' (2019) was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize in 2019. He was elected a member of

Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association or academy of artists, each of whom must have produced a distinguished body of work of genuine originality. It was created in 1981 by the country's Arts Council on the initiati ...

- the academy of artists in Ireland. In 2023 he was elected to the inaugural Charlotte Maxeke-Mary Robinson Chair at the

University of the Western Cape The University of the Western Cape (UWC; ) is a Public university, public research university in Bellville, South Africa, Bellville, near Cape Town, South Africa. The university was established in 1959 by the Politics of South Africa, South ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McNamee, Eoin 1961 births Living people People from Kilkeel British male novelists British male screenwriters British male television writers Male novelists from Northern Ireland Screenwriters from Northern Ireland Television writers from Northern Ireland