PAUL MURRAY was born in Newcastle, Co. Down in 1947 and is a Dominician priest now working in Rome. In 1991 the Dedalus Press published his third collection of poems, The Absent Fountain, which was reprinted on a number of occasions, and this was followed in 2003 by These Black Stars.

"Murray affirms the virtues and mysteries of spiritual sources... In a secular and sceptical age, he speaks quietly but with persuasive power and integrity" - Maurice Harmon, Irish University Review

"The poems in The Absent Fountain have a mystical quality yet they are never esoteric. They are written with total conviction yet they are never dogmatic. The only knowledge essential to a reader is a knowledge of human life and human needs... It is, in every sense, an inspired work" - Dennis O'Driscoll, Doctrine and Life