Maurice Harmon, a distinguished academic, literary critic and scholar, has published studies of Irish writers from William Carleton to Seán O'Faoláin, Mary Lavin, and Benedict Kiely, from Austin Clarke to Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney, and Dennis O’Driscoll. Harmon’s career as editor-founder of the Irish University Review and his publications, including S
ean O’Faolain: A Life, 1994; the ground-breaking anthology,
Irish Poetry after Yeats, 1979;
Selected Essays, 2006;
Thomas Kinsella: Designing for the Exact Needs, 2008; with
The Dialogue of the Ancients of Ireland, his translation of
Accalam na Senórach, the medieval compendium of stories and poems, 2009, among others, affirm him as one of the elect. His reputation as a poet has grown with the publication of the stylish and humane
Loose Connections (Salmon, 2012) and the compassionate
Hoops of Holiness (Salmon, 2016).
afterwords (Salmon, 2020) is his seventh collection.