Philip Casey was born to Irish parents in London in 1950 and grew up in Co Wexford. For many years he lived at Arran Street East, Dublin.
His verse collections are Those Distant Summers (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, 1980); After Thunder (Raven Arts Press, 1985); The Year of the Knife: Poems 1980-1990, (Raven Arts Press Dublin, 1991); Dialogue in Fading Light: New and Selected Poems (Dublin, New Island Books, 2005); and Tried and Sentenced: Selected Poems (Dublin, eMaker Editions, 2014).
His play Cardinal was performed in Hamburg in 1990.
His novels are The Fabulists (Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 1994/ London, Serif Books, 1995); The Water Star (London, Picador, 1999); and The Fisher Child (Picador, 2001), which completes The Bann River Trilogy.
In a world before social media, he was an early proponent of authors having an online presence, through his personal site, the original Irish Writers Online, and others.
He was awarded the inaugural Kerry Ingredients Listowel Writers’ Week Novel of the Year Award (1995) for The Fabulists. He was a member of Aosdána. Philip Casey died in Dublin in 2018.
In 2024 a tribute anthology, Distant Summers: Remembering Philip Casey, Writer, Fabulist, Friend, was published. (Dublin, Arlen House, eds. Michael Considine, Katie Donovan, Eamonn Wall).
Philip Casey at The National Library of Ireland
