John Banville
Novelist
Irish novelist who has won multiple awards and has been considered to be "one of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in English" due to his forensic prose style and dark humor.
He wanted to be a painter and architect as a young adult and worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus.
He has written crime novels under the pseudonym Benjamin Black.
He married textile artist Janet Dunham, and they had two sons before separating.
Frank O'Connor is also an acclaimed Irish author.