Playwright, poet, and ballad singer Patrick Galvin was born in Cork City, Ireland, on either April 15th or August 15th, probably between 1927 and 1929. Galvin's date of birth remains uncertain as his mother changed his birth certificate so that he could more easily find employment. Galvin was only formally educated until age eleven by the Christian Brothers and spent three of his early teenage years in prison in a reformatory outside Cork. Later he worked in London and in a Kibbutz in Israel.

Galvin's dramatic and poetic work draws heavily on his experience as a ballad singer and his knowledge of Irish folk music. Galvin recorded several collections of Irish ballads, wrote Irish Songs of Resistance: 1169-1923 (1962), and lectured on Irish folk music in the former East Germany. His plays were produced in Dublin, Belfast, and London. In the early 1960s Cry the Believers and And Him Stretched were staged in Dublin. In the 1970s he began a productive association with the Lyric Players Theatre in Belfast through a Leverhulme Fellowship in Drama. In Belfast Galvin brought to the stage The Last Burning (1974), We Do It For Love (1975), and My Silver Bird. He also edited The Lyric Players Theatre's literary journal, Threshold, for a short period. Galvin's poems have been collected in Man on the Porch (1979) and Folk Tales for the General (1989).

Galvin died on May 10, 2011.

Sources:

Boland, Rosita. “Death of Writer of 'Raggy Boy' Trilogy Patrick Galvin at 83.” The Irish Times, May 11, 2011.

Pettifer, James. “Patrick Galvin: Poet and Dramatist Who Chronicled the Lives of His.” The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, October 23, 2011.

Ramsell, Billy. “Patrick Galvin (Poet).” Poetry International. Poetry International Rotterdam. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://www.poetryinternational.org/pi/poet/18348/Patrick-Galvin/en/nocache.

Ream, Sarah. “Editorial: 15 November 2010.” Poetry International. Poetry International Rotterdam. November 15, 2010. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://www.poetryinternational.org/pi/int_article/18514/Editorial-15-November-2010/en/nocache.