O'Driscoll was one of the finest Irish poets of the 20th/21st Century. He died unexpectedly on Christmas Eve, 2012.

Worked closely with Seamus Heaney to create the acclaimed autobiography-in-interviews, Stepping Stones.

Seamus Heaney, in an article in The Guardian, called Dennis O'Driscoll My hero, and went on to write, Dennis was beloved by his friends for his originality as a poet, his acuity as a critic, his probity and courage and merriment as a man. He was also one of the very few worthy of the tribute Auden once paid to Eliot: ‘So long as one was in his presence one felt it was impossible to say or do anything base.’

Events celebrating O'Driscoll’s life are being planned for at The Poetry Foundation in Chicago and at the Academy of American Poets in New York City