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]. Miscellaneous, Patrick Boyle, ‘Books We Enjoyed
Most in ’67’, in Hibernia (Jan. 1968), p.21 [incl. notice
on The Third Policeman]. Editions, Benedict Kiely, intro., The Port Wine Stain: Patrick Boyle's Best Stories (Dublin: O’Brien
Press 1983), 236pp.
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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). CATL 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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