Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works are an implicit critique of the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her deft use of social commentary, realism and biting irony have earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.
Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland during his lifetime. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".
Frank O'Connor was an Irish author and translator. He wrote poetry, dramatic works, memoirs, journalistic columns and features on aspects of Irish culture and history, criticism, long and short fiction, biography, and travel books, He is most widely known for his more than 150 short stories and for his memoirs. The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award was named in his honour.
Brian Moore, was a novelist and screenwriter from Northern Ireland who emigrated to Canada and later lived in the United States. He was acclaimed for the descriptions in his novels of life in Northern Ireland during and after the Second World War, in particular his explorations of the inter-communal divisions of The Troubles, and has been described as "one of the few genuine masters of the contemporary novel". He was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1975 and the inaugural Sunday Express Book of the Year award in 1987, and he was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. Moore also wrote screenplays and several of his books were made into films.
Bernard MacLaverty is an Irish fiction writer and novelist. His novels include Cal and Grace Notes. He has written five books of short stories.
Events in the year 1966 in Ireland.
Sophie Anna Ward is an English stage and screen actress, and a writer of non-fiction and fiction. As an actress, she played Elizabeth Hardy, the female lead in Barry Levinson's Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), and in other feature film roles including in Cary Joji Fukunaga's period drama Jane Eyre (2011), and Jane Sanger's horror feature, Swiperight (2020). In 1982 she had a role in the Academy Award-winning best short film, A Shocking Accident. On television she played Dr Helen Trent in British police drama series Heartbeat from 2004 to 2006, the character Sophia Byrne in the series Holby City from 2008 to 2010, the role of Lady Ellen Hoxley in the series Land Girls from 2009 to 2011, and that of Lady Verinder in the mini-series The Moonstone (2016). She has had a variety of other roles on stage and in short and feature films.
St Malachy's College, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is the oldest Catholic diocesan college in Ulster. The college's alumni and students are known as Malachians.
Brian David Boyd is a professor of literature known primarily as an expert on the life and works of author Vladimir Nabokov and on literature and evolution. He is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Ciarán Hinds is an Irish actor. Born in Belfast, Hinds is known for a range of screen and stage roles. He has starred in feature films including The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), Persuasion (1995), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), Road to Perdition (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Munich (2005), Amazing Grace (2007), There Will Be Blood (2007), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Silence (2016), First Man (2018), and Belfast (2021). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the last of these.
Michael McLaverty was an Irish writer of novels and short stories.
Janet Margaret Todd is a British academic and author. She was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Florida, where she undertook a doctorate on the poet John Clare. Much of her work concerns Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, and their circles.
Paula Jayne Byrne, Lady Bate, is a British biographer, novelist, and literary critic.
Chawton House is a Grade II* listed Elizabethan manor house in Hampshire. It is run as a historic property and also houses the research library of The Centre for the Study of Early Women's Writing, 1600–1830, using the building's connection with the English novelist Jane Austen.
George McWhirter is an Irish-Canadian writer, translator, editor, teacher and Vancouver's first Poet Laureate.
That part of the United Kingdom called Northern Ireland was created in 1922, with the partition of the island of Ireland. The majority of the population of Northern Ireland wanted to remain within the United Kingdom. Most of these were the Protestant descendants of settlers from Great Britain.
Jane K. Cleland is a contemporary American author of mystery fiction. She is the author of the Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries, a traditional mystery series set in New Hampshire and featuring antiques appraiser Josie Prescott, as well as books and articles about the craft of writing. Cleland has been nominated for and has won numerous awards for her writing.
Maura McHugh is an Irish author of horror and fantasy in prose, comic books, plays, and screenplays.
Jo Baker is a British writer. She is the author of six novels, including the bestselling Longbourn, a New York Times Notable Book, in development as a feature film with Random House Films and StudioCanal. She has also written short stories for BBC Radio 4 and reviews for The Guardian and The New York Times Book Review. In 2018, she was awarded a Visiting Fellowship at the Queen's University Belfast, and she is currently an Honorary Fellow at Lancaster University.
Lord George Augusta Hill was an Anglo-Irish military officer, politician and landowner.