Eavan Boland

Eavan Boland (born 24 September 1944 in Dublin) is an Irish poet. Boland's father, Frederick Boland, was a career diplomat and her mother, Frances Kelly, was a noted post-expressionist painter. She was born in Dublin in 1944. At the age of six, Boland's father was appointed Irish Ambassador to the United Kingdom; the family followed him to London, where Boland had her first experiences of anti-Irish sentiment. Her dealing with this hostility strengthened Boland's identification with her Irish heritage. She spoke of this time in her poem "An Irish Childhood in England: 1951." At 14, she returned to Dublin to attend Holy Child School in Killiney. She published a pamphlet of poetry (23 Poems) in her first year at Trinity, in 1962. Boland...