Gogarty, Oliver St John (1878–1957)

Irish writer. Gogarty was born in Dublin and educated at the Royal University, and Trinity College, Dublin, later becoming a successful Dublin surgeon. A wit and a poet, Gogarty wrote several books, including the autobiographical As I was Going Down Sackville Street (1937). He is best known for his racy books of reminiscences, including Tumbling in the Hay (1939) and It Isn't This Time of Year at All! (1954). He took an active interest in Irish politics, being a senator of the Irish Free State 1922–36.

Gogarty was a member of the literary circle which included W B Yeats, George Moore, and James Joyce, and he figures in Ulysses as Buck Mulligan. Among his volumes of verse are Poems and Plays (1920), An Offering of Swans (1923), Others to Adorn (1938), and Elbow Room (1939). As I was Going Down Sackville Street was the cause of a successful libel action against him. In 1939 Gogarty moved permanently to the USA, where he wrote and lectured. He died in New York.