Noel Duffy was born in Dublin. He co-edited (with Theo Dorgan) Watching the River Flow: A Century in Irish Poetry (Poetry Ireland, 1999) and was the winner of the START Chapbook Prize in 2003 for his collection The Silence After.
His debut collection In the Library of Lost Objects was published by Ward Wood, London, in 2011 and was shortlisted for the 2012 Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish Author.
His second collection On Light & Carbon followed in October 2013, with his third collection, Summer Rain appearing in August 2016. Street Light Amber, a narrative sequence of love poems, was published in spring 2020, again with Ward Wood.
Noel was awarded the Patrick & Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry 2018.