PADRAIC FALLON was born in Athenry, Co. Galway in 1905. He moved to Dublin while he was in his teens, and his first poems were published there by '�' (George Russell). He married in 1930, and had six sons, of whom four survive. His middle years were spent in Wexford, and it was there that he wrote a series of radio plays. He moved back to Dublin in 1963, and then to Cornwall in 1967, before returning to Ireland. His last years were spent in Kinsale, Co. Cork. Padraic Fallon died in 1974. His Collected Poems was published by Dolmen Press a few months before his death. In 1990 Carcanet published a new Collected Poems adding previously unpublished work.

BRIAN FALLON, the second of Padraic Fallon's six sons, was born in 1933 and educated at St Peter's College Wexford and Trinity College Dublin. He was art critic of the Irish Times from 1963 to 1998 and its literary editor from 1977 to 1988. He is the author of six books, including An Age of Innocence (1998), a study of Irish culture from 1930 to 1960.