Born in Armagh City, Conor is an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Reading University. Having written several essays on Seamus Heaney, his books, The Ends of Ireland, was published in 2012, Samuel Beckett, and, The Visual Arts, in 2017. The second collection of his poems, English Martyrs, was published in 2019 (Two Rivers Press). He was director of the British Academy-funded Arts project 'Room to Rhyme: Poetry and Crisis’ 1968-98'.