Born Co. Leitrim, in the west of Ireland, Ita Daly took her degree in English and Spanish at University College, Dublin, where she also did post-graduate work in English. She taught for eleven years until the birth of her daughter in 1979. Her short stories have appeared in Irish, British and US magazines and anthologies, including the Penguin Book of Irish Short Stories, and a collection, The Lady with the Red Shoes, was published by Poolbeg Press in 1980.
Twice a winner of a Hennessy Literary Award, she has also won an Irish Times Short Story Competition. Her first novel, Ellen was published in 1986 by Jonathan Cape (and later, in paperback by Black Swan). A Singular Attraction, her second novel, followed a year later. Her third, Dangerous Fictions, was published by Bloomsbury in hardcover and paperback; as was All Fall Down. Unholy Ghosts, a dramatic story of memory and identity, was published by Bloomsbury in 1996. Oxford University Press have published her beautifully presented Irish Myths and Legends.
