14 Facts About Hugh Leonard

Hugh Leonard was an Irish dramatist, television writer, and essayist.

Hugh Leonard was born in Dublin as John Joseph Byrne, but was put up for adoption.

Hugh Leonard was educated at the Harold Boys' National School, Dalkey, and Presentation College, Glasthule, winning a scholarship to the latter.

Hugh Leonard worked as a civil servant for 14 years.

Hugh Leonard moved to Manchester for a while, working for Granada Television, before returning to Ireland in 1970, settling in Dalkey.

Hugh Leonard was commissioned by RTE to write Insurrection, a 50th-anniversary dramatic reconstruction of the Irish uprising of Easter 1916.

Hugh Leonard wrote the script for the RTE adaptation of Strumpet City by James Plunkett.

Three of Hugh Leonard's plays have been presented on Broadway: The Au Pair Man, which starred Charles Durning and Julie Harris; Da ; and A Life.

Hugh Leonard was particularly upset that Murphy had used his money to take clients to the theatre and purchased expensive seats at some of Hugh Leonard's plays.

Hugh Leonard wrote two volumes of autobiography, Home Before Night and Out After Dark.

Hugh Leonard had a passion for cats and restaurants, and an abhorrence of broadcaster Gay Byrne.

In 1994, Hugh Leonard gave a review of Katie Roche' by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy which was performed in the Peacock Theatre, and he recalls his own acting role in an undated amateur production of 'Temporal Powers' which Teresa Deevy attended.

In 1994, Hugh Leonard appeared in a televised interview with Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, an Irish political party associated with the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

Hugh Leonard had long been an opponent of paramilitary groups and a critic of the IRA.