Richard O'Rawe

Richard O'Rawe was born in Belfast's Lower Falls and experienced the full force of the civic unrest that engulfed Northern Ireland for over thirty years. Unhappy with the narrative relating to the IRA/INLA 1981 hunger strike, he wrote the international best-seller, Blanketmen, in 2006.

Richard's follow-up book, Afterlives, was released in 2010 and was critically acclaimed. A life-long friend of the late Gerry Conlon, he fulfilled a promise to the late Guildford Four prisoner by writing In the Name of the Son in 2017, the story of Gerry's frenetic life, following his release in 1989. Richard's first 'Ructions' O'Hare novel, Northern Heist, was loosely based on the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast in 2005 and was published in 2018 by Merrion Press.

This was followed by Goering's Gold, which was released by the New York publishing house, Melville House, in 2022. Since then, Richard has published Stakeknife's Dirty War in 2023. This a story of mass murder and treachery at the heart of the IRA's war with the British intelligence services.

In 2020, Richard co-wrote the play, In the Name of the Son, which has been seen by sell-out audiences in Belfast, at the Edinburgh Festival, New Zealand, and San Francisco.

Richard is the recipient of the Northern Ireland Arts Council's Major Award for Literature, and is currently working on his third Ructions O'Hare novel. He enjoys a glass of red wine, independent thinkers, good food and the best of craic.