Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne was born on 22 February 1954 in Dublin, Ireland. She was awarded the UCD Entrance scholarship for English and went on to attend University College Dublin for almost 10 years – studying Pure English for her bachelor’s degree, Middle English and Old Irish for her master’s degree, and Folklore for her PhD. One of the only times that she has lived outside of Dublin was during research for her doctoral thesis in 1978-9 when she studied at the Folklore Institute in the University of Copenhagen, Denmark as a research scholar. 

Ní Dhuibhne was conferred with her PhD in 1982 – having worked in various jobs during her studies, including as a waitress, a nurse’s assistant and in Greene’s Bookshop. Since her graduation, she has worked in the Department of Irish Folklore in UCD, as an Assistant Keeper in the National Library of Ireland and as a lecturer of Creative Writing at Trinity College and UCD. 

Ní Dhuibhne began writing short stories during her time as a student, the first of which, Green Fuse, was published in the Irish Press under the pseudonym Elizabeth Dean in 1974. Over the next 10 years, she continued to sporadically write short stories, eventually publishing her first collection, Blood and Water, in 1988. From that point onwards, Ní Dhuibhne has continued to publish collections of short stories as well as novels in both English and Irish, children’s books, plays, poetry and some non-fiction including a memoir of her and her husband’s time together before his passing in 2013. 

Over the course of her career, Ní Dhuibhne has received numerous accolades including the Bisto Book of the Year Award for Blaeberry Sunday (1993), an Orange Prize shortlist for The Dancers Dancing (1999), the Butler Award for Prose, the Stewart Parker Award for Drama, the Readers Association of Ireland Award, the 2014 Hennessy Hall of Fame Award, the 2015 Irish PEN Award and was membership of Aosdána in 2004.

She was appointed the Laureate For Irish Fiction 2025 - 2028 by the Arts Council of Ireland.