He published more than 90 books during his lifetime, [ 2 ] [ 4 ] [ a ] and his output consisted of hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, and essays; further works were published posthumously. Many critics feel his early work laid grounds for the fantasy genre. Born in London as heir to one of the oldest Irish peerages, he was raised partly in Kent, but later lived mainly at Ireland's possibly longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle near Tara.
He worked with W. Yeats and Lady Gregory , and supported the Abbey Theatre and some fellow writers. He was a chess and pistol champion of Ireland, and travelled and hunted. He devised an asymmetrical game called Dunsany's chess. In later life, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin. He settled in Shoreham, Kent, in In he took ill when visiting Ireland and died in Dublin of appendicitis. From a historically wealthy and famous family, Lord Dunsany was related to many well-known Irish figures.
He was a kinsman of the Catholic Saint Oliver Plunkett , the martyred Archbishop of Armagh whose ring and crozier head are still held by the Dunsany family. His mother was a cousin of Sir Richard Burton , and he inherited from her considerable height, being 1. The Countess of Fingall, wife of Dunsany's cousin, the Earl of Fingall , wrote a best-selling account of the life of the aristocracy in Ireland in the late 19th century and early 20th century called Seventy Years Young. Plunkett's only adult sibling, a younger brother, from whom he was estranged from about , for reasons not fully clear but connected to his mother's will, was the noted British naval officer Sir Reginald Drax.
Another younger brother died in infancy. The title passed to him at his father's death in at a fairly young age. The young Lord Dunsany returned to Dunsany Castle after war duty, in In that year he was also confirmed as an elector for the Irish representative peers in the House of Lords.
They married in Lady Beatrice was supportive of Dunsany's interests and helped him by typing his manuscripts, selecting work for his collections, including the retrospective short story collection, and overseeing his literary heritage after his death. Dunsany circulated with many literary figures of the time.
