Eoin Neeson was born in Cork in 1927. He worked in RTÉ, as Director of the Government Information Bureau and with the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Energy. He wrote fifteen books, including The Civil War in Ireland 1921–23, The Life and Death of Michael Collins, A History of Irish Forestry and The Book of Irish Saints. He also wrote novels under the pseudonym Donal O’Neill. He died in 2011.