Martyn Turner

Martyn Turner (born 1948) is an English political cartoonist, caricaturist and writer. His cartoons appear daily in The Irish Times parodying current events.

Turner was born in Wanstead, Essex and grew up in London. He was educated at Bancroft's School. In 1967, he went to Belfast and enrolled at the Queen's University of Belfast where he read geography. Turner was the first member of his family to go to university. Returning to London for his first Christmas break from college, he learned that one of his grandmothers was born on the Falls Road in Belfast, thus qualifying him for Irish nationality and an Irish passport.

Living in Belfast exposed Turner to the sectarianism of the city and he experienced the initial years of the Troubles and Northern Ireland politics have dominated his work to this day.

Around 1970, he began drawing professionally for the Sunday News. Upon graduation, he joined the Belfast current affairs magazine Fortnight where he became editor. In 1976 he was made political cartoonist at the Irish Times, where he still draws 4 cartoons a week and writes occasionally.

The Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate distribute some of Turner's cartoons to over 200 journals and newspapers round the world.

He has worked, also, for various British publications such as The Scotsman, Business AM, The Business, The Sunday Express, The Independent, the Guardian and The Spectator and the Paris based current affairs magazine Courrier International.

Turner lives in County Kildare with his wife. He has one son and two grandsons.

Honoraria

Turner was named:

• 1997, commentator of the Year, Irish Media Awards

• 2001, European Political Cartoonist of the Year, Forte dei Marmi

• 1998, awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Ulster

• 2001, awarded an honorary doctorate by Queen's University Belfast

• 2010 Canadian Human Rights Awards

• 2010 Tonight Media Awards, Dublin

Publications

Solo works

• Up Every Tree- The bumper Book of Bertie (Gill and Macmillan - October 2006) ISBN 0-7171-4158-6
• Martyn Turner's Greatest Hits (Gill & Macmillan - October 28, 2003) ISBN 0-7171-3573-X
• Railings (Blackstaff Press - October, 2000) ISBN 0-85640-687-2
• The Golfer's Guide to World History (Blackstaff Press - November, 1999) ISBN 0-85640-663-5
• Brace Yourself, Bridge It! (Blackstaff Press - October, 1998) ISBN 0-85640-639-2
• The Noble Art of Politics (Blackstaff Press - October, 1996) ISBN 0-85640-583-3
• Pack Up Your Troubles (Blackstaff Press - September, 1995) ISBN 0-85640-569-8
• The Odd Couple (Irish Times Books - November, 1994) ISBN 0-907011-21-7
• Politics et al. (Irish Times Books - 1992) ISBN B0000COI18
• The Long Goodbye: A cartoon tribute to a Taoiseach (Irish Times Books - 1992) ISBN 0-907011-19-5
• The Man Who Won the Tour De France (Gill & Macmillan-October 31, 1991) ISBN 0-7171-1916-5
• Not Viking Likely (Irish Life Viking Adventure 1988)
• Heavy Weather (Gill & Macmillan - December 31, 1989) ISBN 0-7171-1699-9
• Fistful of Dáilers (Gill & Macmillan - October 20, 1987) ISBN 0-7171-1551-8
• 'Illuminations' (Boethius Press 1986)
• Martyn Turner: The Book (Irish Times Books - 1983) ISBN 0-907011-10-1

In 2007,2008,2009 and 2010 The Irish Times published a calendar of Turner cartoons, given away free with the newspaper

Collaborative works

• Thin Black Lines Rides Again - Colm Regan, Scott Sinclair, Martyn Turner (TIDE - June, 1994) ISBN 0-948838-30-2
• Cattle Rustling: A Retelling of the Táin - James Simmons, Martyn Turner (Fortnight Educational - December, 1991) ISBN 0-9509081-3-4
• Thin Black Lines - Colm Regan, Scott Sinclair
• Columba - A cartoon History of The Americas (Potatoe Press)

Illustration

• Pull the Door Marked Push: Inside the High I. Q. Society - Anne Schulman (Granta Editions ,Nov 1992) ISBN 0-9067829-6-1

External links

• Last Sunday's Martyn Turner cartoon. (The Irish Times is not published on a Sunday.)
• Biography at the British Cartoon Archive

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Name	Turner, Martyn
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Date of birth	1948
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