Patrick Boyle

Life
1905-1982; b. Ballymoney, Co. Antrim; ed. Coleraine Acad. Institution; Ulster Bank, Derry, Tyrone, and 25 yrs in Donegal; eventually bank-manager in Wexford; MIAL; d. Dublin. DIW DIL FDA OCIL

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Works
Stories
  • At Night All Cats are Grey (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1966).
  • All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1969).
  • A View from Calvary (London: Gollancz 1976), 192pp.
Novels
Like Any Other Man (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1966) [solo]
Collections
  • The Port Wine Stain: Patrick Boyle's Best Stories, intro. by Benedict Kiely (Dublin: O’Brien Press 1983), 236pp.
Miscellaneous
  • ‘Books We Enjoyed Most in ’67’, in Hibernia (Jan. 1968), p.21 [incl. notice on The Third Policeman].

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Criticism
J. W. Foster, Forces and Themes in Ulster Fiction (Gill & Macmillan 1974), pp.100-11; Henri-Dominique Paratte, ‘Patrick Boyle’s Tragic Humanity’, in Rafroidi and Brown, eds., The Irish Short Story (Colin Smythe 1979), pp.275-87; Benedict Kiely, ‘The Cormorant and the Badger: The Stories of Patrick Boyle’, The Irish Times (16 March 1982), rep. in ‘A Raid into Dark Corners and Other Essays (Cork UP 1999), pp.79-83; John G. Hynes, ‘Patrick Boyle’s Like Any Other Man, A Critical Evaluation’, Etudes Irlandaises, 12 (Dec. 1987), pp.87-94.

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References
Belfast Linen Hall Library holds The Port Wine Stain, Patrick Boyle’s Best Stories, intro. Benedict Kiely (1983). Cat. 1994, All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1969), 159pp. [026 161 18 385]; A View from Calvary (London: Gollancz 1976), 191pp. [0575 021 1292]; The Port Wine Stain [Classic Irish Fiction ser.] (Dublin: O’Brien Press; London: Allison & Busby 1983), 236pp., intro. Ben. Kiely [0862 7801 01]; also a novel, Like any Other Man (NY: Grove Press 1966), 332pp. [no ISBN].

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Notes
The Port Wine Stain (1983), intro. by Ben Kiely begins, ‘Pat Boyle I knew a lot about before I knew Pat Boyle, if you know what I mean. As a young bank official, he had been stationed, or garrisoned, in my own native town of Omagh; and some of his stories reflect the mood of that place ... Death can only arrest the ultimate agony but is also the ultimate disillusion, the ultimate betrayal ... A bit of hardship is neither here nor there? A profound acceptance of life. [END] 236pp. 12 stories.

Like Any Other Man (1966) uses the Samson and Delilah story in modern circumstances, dealing with a hard-drinking bachelor called Simpson and his mistress Delia; he becomes blind apparently from syphilis and dies under a wardrobe that he pulls down on top of himself. [No entry in IF2]

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