Henry Boylan (1912–2007) had a long and distinguished career as a public servant and a man of letters. Born to a seafaring family in Drogheda, Co. Louth, Boylan joined the Irish civil service after finishing school. Over the course of his civil service career, he worked with Radio Éireann, Gael Linn and the Wexford Slobs wildlife reserve. The author of a number of radio plays and adaptations, Boylan published his first book, a biography of Wolfe Tone, in 1981, before going on to devote 25 years to his groundbreaking work of scholarship, the outstanding Dictionary of Irish Biography, writing all 1,500 entries himself. He is the author of a number of other books, including the memoir A Voyage Around My Life.