Biography
Stewart Parker was born in Sydenham, a suburb of East Belfast, to a Unionist family. He described his childhood as "plagued by ill health" and it was illness that caused him to fail his 11-plus (the exam which qualified British schoolchildren for grammar school where they would be groomed for university). Instead he was educated at Ashfield Boys' School, Sydenham, a secondary school more geared towards vocational training. Here he was encouraged by his English teacher, John Malone. Malone cast him as the lead in the school's first ever play and ensured his transfer to Sullivan Upper School, Holywood. In 1959, he enrolled at the Queen's University of Belfast to study English. His ill health continued and in his second year at university he developed Ewing's tumour, which resulted in the amputation of a leg. After taking a BA in 1963 and an MA in "poetic drama" in 1965, he moved to New York where he taught as "Instructor in English", first at Hamilton College, then at Cornell University. In 1969, he returned to Belfast where he worked as a freelance writer, contributing a column, "High Pop", to the Irish Times for 5 years. He subsequently lived in Edinburgh, then in London, where he died.
Parker wrote several plays for radio, beginning with "Speaking of Red Indians" in 1967. He also published two books of poetry, "The Casualty's Meditation" (1967) and "Maw" (1968). His first stage play, "Spokesong", was premiered in Dublin in 1975. Set in Belfast, it contrasts the struggles of the hero/narrator, "Frank", to keep his family bicycle shop with the story of his grandparents' courtship and experiences in World War One. It established the theme of Irish history with which many of Parker's plays dealt, as well as his technique of interspersing the action with songs. "Spokesong" won the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award and, the following year, Parker was given a development grant by Thames Television.
His last work for the stage was what he called a "triptych" of plays set across 200 years of history. "Northern Star" (1984) was about the leader of an uprising against British authority, hanged for treason in 1798; "Heavenly Bodies" (1986) was about the Victorian playwright Dion Boucicault; and "Pentecost" (1987) was set against the 1974 Ulster Workers' Council Strike. His last work for TV, Lost Belongings (1987), was a version of the legend of "Deirdre of the Sorrows", set in the 1980s. In the summer of 1988, while revising "Heavenly Bodies" for publication, Parker was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He is commemorated by the Stewart Parker Trust, which presents an annual award for best new play by an Irish writer.
