Director Emeritus:
Durrell School of Corfu

Richard Pine worked briefly as a public relations consultant before joining the national public service broadcaster, Radio Telef�s �ireann, where he was Concerts Manager 1974-83, responsible for the National Symphony Orchestra, Concert Orchestra, String Quartet and choirs. In 1976 and 1980 he directed the first and second European tours of the National Symphony Orchestra. Subsequently, he was invited to become deputy music critic of The Irish Times for which he contributed hundreds of feature articles and reviews of concerts, recitals and operas 1986-1990. He was co-editor of the New York-published Irish Literary Supplement 1990-94. As a reviewer, he has also written book reviews for all the major Irish newspapers and magazines, and appears frequently in television documentaries for RT� and the BBC, and on RT� Radio, for which he has presented over 100 programmes. He is also an obituarist for the Guardian newspaper (UK).

He later moved to the Public Affairs Division of RT�, 1983-99, where he was a senior editor responsible for the origination and production of corporate text. He took early retirement from RT� in 1999 and was re-engaged on contract as editor of a monograph series to mark 75 years of Irish broadcasting, for which he has written two volumes and edited six others.

Parallel with his work in public broadcasting, Richard Pine developed his academic and professional interests which led to the foundation of the Association of Arts Administrators (of which he was founder-Chairman 1975), the Irish Theatre Archive (for which he edited the research journal Prompts 1981-83), the Media Association of Ireland (Chairman 1985-87) and the Irish Writers' Union (Secretary 1988-90).

Contact Information:

email: [email protected]

Mailing Address:

c/o Durrell School of Corfu
11 Filellinon
Corfu, Greece 49-100

Richard Pine's professional interest in arts administration led him to become involved with the cultural development programs of the Council of Europe, to which he was a consultant 1978-88, and to lecture on the Arts Administration Diploma Course in University College Dublin in 1990. His seminal essay on cultural democracy was published by the Finnish Committee of UNESCO in 1982 and he has lectured on this theme at the Cultural Research Centre, Belgrade (Yugoslavia) and at the City University, London. His guest lectureships in literature and Irish studies have also brought him to Berkeley, Emory (Atlanta), New York University, Georgia Southern, University of Central Florida, Centre for Irish Studies at CUA, Washington, and the Princess Grace Library, Monaco.

His first published volume was a catalogue of the Golden Jubilee Exhibition of the Dublin Gate Theatre (1928-78), which was subsequently re-written as a volume in the 'Theatre in Focus' series of monographs on theatre history (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healy, 1984). In 1999 he was Associate Producer of an RT� television documentary, Dear Boy, on the founder of the Gate Theatre, Miche�l mac Liamm�ir. His interest in theatre prompted him to write the definitive study of the Irish playwright Brian Friel, which first appeared as Brian Friel and Ireland's Drama (London: Routledge, 1990) and, in a completely new edition, as The Diviner: The Art of Brian Friel (Dublin: UCD Press, 1998). His close association with Friel is indicated by the fact that he has been invited to write original programme notes for the premieres of three of his plays: Molly Sweeney (1994), Give Me Your Answer, Do! (1997) and Afterplay (2002). He is frequently invited to lecture on Friel's work, and will shortly be conducting a seminar on the subject at the Maly Theatre, St.Petersburg.

'Essential reading for anyone interested in our theatre' (Thomas Kilroy, Sunday Tribune 'Pine's strength as a commentator comes from his meditative, associative habit of mind; his readings constantly deepen the sense of Friel's complexity and modernity' (Seamus Heaney)

He has written two books on Oscar Wilde: a short biography (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1983) and a study of Wilde's Irishness, The Thief of Reason: Oscar Wilde and Modern Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1995), and edited a volume of essays on the Irish poet Brendan Kennelly: Dark Fathers into Light (Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books, 1994). He has also written on the Irish playwright John B. Keane and the novelist Kate O'Brien.

His interest in music history and music education led in 1989 to his being elected a life-Governor of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, which subsequently (1998) bestowed on him a Fellowship honoris causa. He has chaired the RIAM's Long-Term Planning Committee and has worked on its Management and Finance Committee. He authored and co-edited the official history of the Academy, To Talent Alone: the Royal Irish Academy of Music 1848-1998 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1998) and edited and produced a volume of Thomas Davis Lectures for RT� Radio in 1998 to mark the RIAM's sesquicentenary: Music in Ireland 1848-1998 (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1998). In 2000 he wrote and presented a 15-part radio documentary, Music, Place and People: the Irish Experience 1740-1940 on RT�'s newly established 24-hour classical music channel, Lyric fm.

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Richard Pine's interest in the work of Lawrence Durrell began in adolescence. He first met Lawrence Durrell when he invited the writer to visit TCD in 1972 to reply to a paper which he entitled 'Sexual Curiosity and Metaphysical Speculation in the work of Lawrence Durrell', which Durrell described in Travel and Leisure magazine in 1975 as 'the best unpacking of my literary baggage that I have heard'. He subsequently corresponded with Durrell up to the latter's death in 1990, and wrote The Dandy and the Herald: Manners, Mind and Morals from Brummell to Durrell (London and New York: Macmillan and St Martin's Press, 1988) as a prelude to his definitive study of Durrell's notebooks and thought-processes, Lawrence Durrell: the Mindscape (London and New York, Macmillan and St Martin's Press, 1994) which is re-issued in a revised edition by the Durrell School of Corfu in 2003. He has contributed to several conferences of the International Lawrence Durrell Society, and to the inauguration of the Durrell Library at the Universit� Paris X (Nanterre), and is a frequent contributor to Deus Loci.

In 2000 Richard Pine founded the Durrell School of Corfu.

He divides his time between Corfu, Dublin and Connemara, in the west of Ireland, and is currently writing a study of Ireland and the post-colonial world: A Disappointed Bridge.