Muldoon, Paul

The poet Paul Muldoon grew up on a farm near the village of Moy, Armagh, Northern Ireland. He was the oldest of three children; his father was an agricultural labourer and his mother the village schoolteacher. Being a Catholic family in a largely Protestant county, they had little contact with other people. There were few books in the house except for a few Catholic pamphlets and a junior encyclopaedia. Muldoon became acquainted with the classics through abbreviated editions or illustrated editions, but he was more influenced by pop and rock music and American culture he picked up from watching television and films than by the books. He discovered poetry when he at the age of fourteen read an anthology of contemporary Irish poets from cover to cover like a comic book. Several of his teachers at school were interested in poetry and literature, so he was later able meet many of these poets.