Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle was born in 1958. He attended St. Fintan's Christian Brothers School in Sutton and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and continued his education at University College, Dublin. He worked for fourteen years as an English and Geography teacher at Greendale Community School, in Kilbarrack, North Dublin. Since 1993 he has been dedicated to writing full-time. He is married to Belinda and has two sons, Rory and Jack.

Roddy Doyle achieved widespread recognition when his novel The Commitments (1987) was made into a motion picture in 1991. Doyle's novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha won the Booker Prize, Britain's highest literary award in 1993. These novels for adults established Doyle as a leading comic writer. Since then, Roddy has gone on to write children's novels including the best-selling and acclaimed The Giggler Treatment and Rover Saves Christmas.

Roddy Doyle is intensely private. Those who know him describe the man as modest and unassuming. He goes to great lengths to protect his privacy and has stated a preference for the quiet family life.

He is a modest writer and always has time to help out his writer friends whenever he can--whether with advice or publications. He has been a book lover from a very young age and still holds a strong passion for books and reading. His outlook on writing is, "If writers want to write, they want to write, and they should be left alone, I am no mentor and I don't think I'd be doing anyone any favours if I said, --come on, lets do it this way-- we'll leave the cloning to the sheep".