R.F. (Roy) Foster is emeritus professor of Irish History at Oxford and at Queen Mary University of London. His many prizewinning books include Modern Ireland 1600-1972; Paddy and Mr Punch: connections in Irish and English history (Penguin, 1995); The Irish story: telling tales and making it up in Ireland (Penguin, 2001); the two-volume authorised biography of W.B. Yeats (Oxford University Press, 1998, 2005); Vivid Faces: the revolutionary generation in Ireland 1890-1923 (Penguin, 2014); and On Seamus Heaney (Princeton University Press, 2020). He is also a well-known cultural commentator and critic.