William Trevor

One of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world,[5] he is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary writers of short stories in the English language.

He moved several times to other provincial locations, including Skibbereen, Tipperary,[clarification needed] Youghal and Enniscorthy, as a result of his father's work as a bank official.

He married Jane Ryan in 1952 and emigrated to England, working as a teacher, a sculptor and then as a copywriter for an advertising agency.

The characters in Trevor's work are typically marginalized members of society: children, the elderly, single middle-aged men and women, or the unhappily married.

Trevor set his stories in both England and Ireland; they range from black comedies to tales based on Irish history and politics.

His early books are peopled by eccentrics who speak in a pedantically formal manner and engage in hilariously comic activities that are recounted by a detached narrative voice.

Instead of one central figure, the novels feature several protagonists of equal importance, drawn together by an institutional setting, which acts as a convergence point for their individual stories.

Trevor also explored the decaying institution of the "Big House" in his novels Fools of Fortune and The Story of Lucy Gault.

It is a bronze sculpture by Liam Lavery and Eithne Ring in the form of a lectern, with an open book incorporating an image of the writer and a quotation, as well as the titles of his three Whitbread Prize-winning works, and two others of significance.

[citation needed] On 23 May 2008, the eve of his 80th birthday, a commemorative plaque, indicating the house on Upper Cork Street, Mitchelstown, where Trevor was born, was unveiled by Louis McRedmond.