Séamas Mac Annaidh was born in Dublin in 1961, the eldest of four children. His mother Dr. Ita Briscoe was from Dublin and his father was a bank manager. This gave rise to a rather peripatetic upbringing: Monaghan from 1961 to 1964; Dundalk from 1964 to 1966; Enniskillen from 1966-1993, and Derry from 1993. He now lives with his wife Joy Beatty, a classical musician from Larne along with their daughter Raphaelle, who was born in 2001. Mac Annaidh gained a degree in Irish and English from the University of Ulster, Coleraine in 1982. He spent four years working as a library assistant in Enniskillen from 1984 to 1988 and spent periods after this as a writer -in-residence in the University of Ulster and in Queen’s University, Belfast. He has issued a number of musical recordings with the group Lonta Fhear Manach (’The Fermanagh Blackbirds’ - a reference to the title of his first novel, discussed below) and has made a film Misteach Bhaile Átha Cliath (1995) for RTÉ and BBC Ulster.
Since 1991 he has worked as a freelance writer and broadcaster, most notably in recent years as literary editor of the Irish language newspaper LÁ until 2003. In the late nineties and early in the first decade of the present century he published fragments of creative writing in various journals, translated a novel from the Italian of Andrea Camilleri Colún Deataigh (Coiscéim, 1999) and produced a number of works of local history, it was only with the appearance of a fragment entitled ‘Tús úrscéil’ (literally ‘The beginning of a novel’) in the annual literary journal Bliainiris in 2001, that there appeared a real prospect of another original novel from Mac Annaidh. His considerable fame rests on the trilogy of novels: Cuaifeach mo Lon Dubh Buí, Mo dhá Mhicí and Rubble na Mickies (Coiscéim, 1983, 1986 and 1990 respectively) but he has also published a collection of short stories Féirín Scéalta agus Eile (Coiscéim, 1992) and a novel in diary form An Deireadh (Coiscéim, 1996).
The first book of his trilogy was highly praised and critics and the public alike wondered if indeed further books were planned as Cuaifeach Mo Lon Dubh Buí is full of invention, bluff, humour and reflexive contemplation. It is difficult to try to summarise the plot of Cuaifeach Mo Lon Dubh Buí, and the syle and atmosphere are more important than plot in any event. The main characters are in their teens or early twenties and are delineated with great clarity, honesty and affection. The identity of the individual is one of the main themes of this highly original work. The large amount of English used in the book and the number of bilingual puns surprised many, but language is used effectively to register a number of sociolinguistic truths theretofore unacknowledged in contemporary literature. In one sense Cuaifeach mo lon dubh buí is a classic bildungsroman and in another an exposition of the individual imagination after the manner of Sterne’s Tristam Shandy. Despite the invention and high standard of both Mo dhá Mhicí and Rubble na Mickies it is Cuaifeach Mo Lon Dubh Buí in particular that has made a unique place for itself in modern Irish literature. The work has generated something of a critical industry, but of particular note in the raft of literary criticism is Séamas Mac Annaidh agus macallaí sa scáthán (Cois Life, 2001) by Maolmhaodhóg Ó Ruairc. His latest collection of short stories Mr. Lisa agus an Gramafón, (Coiscéim, 2005) was published in 2005.
