Eilís Dillon (Estate)

Agent: Megan Carroll

Eilís Dillon was an Irish author of fifty books, including more than thirty books for children. Most of her children’s books are set in the west of Ireland, in the small struggling island communities along the Atlantic coast. Her style is spare and rugged, and she weaves a magic around a vanishing way of life in her many tales of adventure, danger and suspense on land and sea.

Eilís Dillon built a considerable reputation during her lifetime and beyond as a prolific writer of universal appeal, as well as a distinguished supporter of Irish independence and literary tradition. She stands in a canon that includes Laura Ingalls Wilder and Robert Louis Stevenson.

In 1973 her most successful historical novel, ACROSS THE BITTER SEA, was published.

Eilís Dillon died in 1994 and is buried beside her second husband in Clara, County Offaly. A prize in her memory – the Eilís Dillon Award for a First Children’s Book has since 1990 been given annually as part of the Bisto Book of the Year Awards.