Ronan Bennett

Ronan Bennett (born 14 January 1956) is a Northern Irish novelist and screenwriter.

Biography

Bennett born in England but raised in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland in a devout Roman Catholic family, the son of William H. and Geraldine Bennett. He attended St Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School, Belfast.

In 1974, aged 18, Bennett was convicted of murdering Inspector William Elliott, a 49-year-old police officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary during an Official IRA bank robbery at the Ulster Bank in The Diamond shopping area at Rathcoole, close to his Merville Garden Village home, on 6 September 1974. His conviction was declared unsafe in 1975 and he was released from Long Kesh prison.

Bennett moved to London and in 1978 he was arrested for conspiracy to cause explosions and spent 16 months in prison on remand. Bennett conducted his own defence, and he and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1979. He studied history at King's College London receiving a first class honours degree, and later completed his PhD at the college in 1987. That same year, he was hired as a parliamentary researcher by Jeremy Corbyn MP, the future leader of the Labour Party, in a move that provoked controversy and security concerns.