Kevin Ireland: Award-winning Kiwi poet and writer dies at 89

Kevin Mark Ireland OBE, a poet, short story writer, novelist, and librettist from New Zealand, died on May 19, 2023, after a lengthy fight with cancer.

Ireland was a writer-in-residence at Canterbury University in 1986; in 1987, he received the Grimshaw-Sargeson Fellowship; in 1989, he was a writing fellow at the University of Auckland; and in 1990-91, he was president of PEN.

His honors include:

• 1979 – New Zealand Book Award for Poetry for Literary Cartoons
• 1990 – New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal
• 1992 – Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to literature, in the 1992 Queen’s Birthday Honours
• 2000 – Conferred with an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Massey University
• 2004 – Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement

Kevin Ireland was born Kevin Mark Jowsey on July 18, 1933, in Auckland, New Zealand. In 1957, he changed his surname to Ireland through a deed poll.

Ireland moved to London in 1959 and stayed for twenty-five years (with the exception of a brief stint in Bulgaria translating Bulgarian poetry into English); Ireland worked for The Times for two decades.

He is survived by his wife Professor Janet Mary Wilson and two sons.