John Boyd

John Boyd (1912–2002) was a Northern Irish teacher, radio producer, and playwright. Noted for his ability to reproduce the speech of working class Belfast, he has been described as Northern Ireland's most important playwright, and encouraged the careers of other writers including Seamus Heaney and Stewart Parker. Early life and education John Boyd was born 19 July 1912 in a working class area of east Belfast. He was the first child of three born to Robert Boyd, a steam engine fireman and later a train driver, and Jane Boyd (née Leeman). Boyd attended Mountpottinger elementary school, and subsequently won a scholarship to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He later gained another scholarship, allowing him to attend Queen's University Belfast. A young Boyd was introduced by an uncle and aunt to theatre and the literature of the labour movement, which remained keystones of his life. On graduating, he worked for a short time in a factory in England, as a private tutor, and then in an educational establishment for unemployed youths in Belfast. Following his marriage, on 11 November 1939, to Elizabeth McCune (with whom he would have two sons and a daughter), he took a teaching job in Lisburn Intermediate School. Boyd later completed an extramural B.Litt. through Trinity College Dublin, with a thesis on the work of Forrest Reid, a Belfast writer whose Ulster literature inspired him. Career During the early 1940s, Boyd published a number of articles anonymously in the socialist and nationalist paper the Irish Democrat. In 1943, he co-founded a literary journal, Lagan, with his friend and fellow writer Sam Hanna Bell. Published between 1943–6, the journal hoped to foster the literature and culture of Northern Ireland. Boyd became a central figure in Belfast's cultural life, with a circle which included Roy McFadden, W. R. Rodgers, Joseph Tomelty, Michael McLaverty, Frank O’Connor, and St John Ervine.