Benedict Kiely was born in Dromore, County Tyrone, on August 15, 1919, to Tom and Sara Alice (née Gormley) Kiely. He was the youngest of six children and grew up in Omagh. Tom, a native of Moville, Co Donegal, was a Boer War veteran and later worked as a survey measurer, or “chain man”, for the Ordnance Survey.
At the Mount St Columba CBS he was once impressed by a teacher who interrupted a trigonometry lesson to make an impassioned defence of James Joyce – a remarkable introduction to the great writer from an Irish Christian Brother who, as Kiely later remarked, “made us realise that there was a world where books mattered”.
On leaving school he went to work as a sorting clerk in Omagh Post Office.
In 1937 Ben Kiely entered a Jesuit seminary in Portlaoise to study for the priesthood. But during a lengthy convalescence in a Dublin hospital from a tubercular spinal ailment, he decided that the religious life was not for him. He enrolled at UCD, where he was involved in the production of a poetry broadsheet and was a member of the literature society. He graduated in 1943 with a BA in History and Letters. In 1944 he married Maureen O’Connell and they had four children.
By the time his first novel, Land Without Stars, was published in 1946, Kiely had joined the Irish Independent as a journalist and critic. The banning of his novel In a Harbour Green (1949) had not endeared him to the management; furthermore, a positive review he wrote of George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer prompted complaint from readers and he was no longer asked to review plays. He resigned in 1950. A friend suggested he would be happier at the Irish Press, where he then spent almost 15 years as literary editor. He retired from full-time journalism in the mid-1960s, became a visiting professor of creative writing at several American universities, and later lectured at UCD.
Kiely’s narrative style owes much to the tradition of country storytelling and shares some characteristics with Joyce and Flann O’Brien. He drew on his abandoned religious vocation and the experience of illness in such novels as Honey Seems Bitter (1952), There Was an Ancient House (1955) and Dogs Enjoy the Morning (1968). The Cards of the Gambler (1953) is regarded as one of his best, and others combine elements of fantasy and reality.
He was at his best with the short story. An early story, King’s Shilling, was published in the Irish Bookman, and later stories appeared in the New Yorker, the Kenyon Review and other American magazines. At his best, Kiely came close to matching Frank O’Connor, who championed his work, and Sean O Faolain.
Two volumes of memoirs deal mainly with the Dublin of the 1940s and 1950s. A renowned raconteur, he was also a popular broadcaster. He received the Award for Literature from the Irish Academy of Letters. In 1996, he was named Saoi of Aosdána, the highest honour given by the Arts Council of Ireland. His nephew is the country singer Brian Coll.
Ben Kiely died on February 9, 2007. He was survived by his second wife Frances, his daughters Anne Kiely and Emer Cronin and his son John Kiely. He was predeceased by his first wife and a daughter, Mary.
Novels
Nothing Happens in Carmincross (1985)
All the Way to Bantry Bay and Other Irish Journeys (1978)
Proxopera: A Tale of Modern Ireland (1977)
Dogs Enjoy the Morning (1968)
The Captain with the Whiskers (1960)
There Was an Ancient House (1955)
The Cards of the Gambler (1953)
Honey Seems Bitter (1952)
In a Harbour Green (1949)
Call for a Miracle (1948)
Poor Scholar (1947)
Land Without Stars (1946)
Countries of Contention (1945)
Short Stories
The Collected Stories of Benedict Kiely (2001)
The Trout in the Turnhole (1996)
A Letter to Peachtree (1987)
The State of Ireland: A Novella and Seven Short Stories (1981)
A Cow in the House (1978)
A Ball of Malt and Madame Butterfly (1973)
A Journey to the Seven Streams (1963)
Autobiography
Drink to the Bird: An Omagh Boyhood (1992)
The Waves Behind Us: A Memoir (1999)
Also
Benedict Kiely, A Raid into Dark Corners and Other Essays (1999)
Modern Irish Fiction: A Critique (1950)