Thomas Paul Burgess

Dr Thomas Paul Burgess is a novelist, memoirist, academic, and musician from Belfast, Northern Ireland, now based in Cork. His work explores themes of identity, belonging, exile, and the lingering impact of conflict.

He is the author of the novels Through Hollow Lands and White Church, Black Mountain, as well as the memoir Wild Colonial Boys: A Belfast Punk Story, which recounts his early life, music, and the turbulent backdrop of Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

In addition to his creative writing, Burgess has published widely as an academic, focusing on identity and conflict resolution in Northern Ireland. He served as Associate Professor at University College Cork, where for over three decades he trained community and youth workers—work he once described as “the most seditious job I could undertake whilst maintaining a career in academia.”

A musician as well as a writer, he is known for his work with the bands Ruefrex and Sacred Heart of Bontempi, using music to interrogate politics, culture, and memory.

Across fiction, memoir, scholarship, and song, Burgess’s writing seeks to illuminate resilience, resistance, and the human spirit’s struggle for meaning.