John Waters was born in Castlerea, Co Roscommon. Against the trend of modern journalism, he worked in a variety of roles before entering the media as a late vocation. After somewhat prematurely leaving the education system, he held a range of jobs after leaving school, including railway clerk, showband roadie, pirate radio manager, petrol pump attendant and mailcar driver. He began part-time work as a journalist in 1981, with Hot Press, Ireland’s leading rock’n’roll periodical, becoming a full-time journalist with the paper in 1984, when he moved to Dublin. As a journalist, magazine editor and columnist, he has specialized in raising unpopular issues of public importance, including the repression of famine memories and the denial of rights to fathers. His previous books include Jiving at the Crossroads (Blackstaff, 1991); Race of Angels (4th Estate/Blackstaff,1994): Every Day Like Sunday? (Poolbeg, 1995); An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Ireland (Duckworth, 1997); The Politburo Has Decided That You Are Unwell, (Liffey, 2004); Lapsed Agnostic (Continuum, 2007) and Beyond Consolation (Continuum, 2010).

He has written a number of plays for radio and the stage, including Long Black Coat (1994), Holy Secrets (BBC, 1996), Easter Dues (1998), and Adverse Possession (BBC, 1998). He has been a columnist with the Irish Times for almost twenty years and currently also writes a weekly columns for The Irish Mail on Sunday. He is also a born-again songwriter and the father of a teenage daughter, Róisín.