Theater & Music Theater Faculty

Fintan O'Toole

Fintan O'Toole headshot

Photo by Ben Russell

About

Fintan O’Toole, one of Ireland’s leading public intellectuals, is a columnist for The Irish Times and Leonard L. Milberg ’53 visiting lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton. He also contributes to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, Granta, The Guardian, The Observer, and other international publications. His books on theater include works on William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Thomas Murphy. His books on politics include the bestsellers We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland; Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain; Ship of Fools; and Enough is Enough. In 2011, The Observer named O’Toole one of “Britain’s top 300 intellectuals.” He has received the A.T. Cross Award for Supreme Contribution to Irish Journalism, the Millennium Social Inclusion Award, Journalist of the Year in 2010, the Orwell Prize and the European Press Prize. O’Toole’s History of Ireland in 100 Objects, which covers 100 highly charged artifacts from the last 10,000 years, is currently the basis for Ireland’s postage stamps. He has recently been appointed official biographer of Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. In 2023, O'Toole was named an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

News + Links

Announcing the Winners of the Orwell Prize 2017” | The Orwell Foundation

O’Toole Receives Orwell Prize for Journalism” |  Princeton University, June 2017

European Press Prize Jury Report | April 21, 2017

Fintan O’Toole Named European Commentator of the Year” | The Irish Times, April 20, 2017

Playing Dead: Studying Death in Theater and Film” | Princeton University, June 2018

Fintan O’Toole wins Non-Fiction Book of the Year from An Post Irish Book Awards for We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland | The Irish Times, Nov. 23, 2021

We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland listed among 10 Best Books of 2022 | The New York Times, Nov. 29, 2022

Fintan O’Toole Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences | Princeton University news, April 20, 2023

 

 

Campus Address

W325 Wallace Dance Building
Lewis Arts complex
122 Alexander Street

Email Address

fintan@princeton.edu