Anthony Roche was born in Dublin in 1951 and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, with a First-Class Honours B.A. in English in 1973. He attended the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he was awarded an M.A. in English and a Ph.D. for a dissertation on J.M. Synge. Having taught in the U.S. for the 1980s, he returned to Ireland where he was a Professor in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin, retiring in 2016. He is married to the writer Katy Hayes; they have a son, Merlin, and a daughter, Lily, and live in Monkstown, County Dublin. He has published widely on Irish drama, especially on Brian Friel. His most recent book, The Irish Dramatic Revival, 1899-1939 (Bloomsbury, 2015), includes a chapter ‘Bernard Shaw: The Absent Presence’.
