Denyse Woods was born in
Boston,
Massachusetts, in 1958, daughter of
Gerard Woods, Irish
Consul-General in Boston and his wife Finola Devlin. Her father was to be Ambassador to Australia, Belgium and the
Holy See. Her uncle was the poet and diplomat
Denis Devlin. Her mother died while her father was posted to Rome and Woods was sent to a boarding school in
Ireland. After school Woods initially did a secretarial course. A later job in Iraq led to her to study Arabic and English at
University College, Dublin. Her father died five years after her mother. Woods was left with two older siblings, a brother Henry and a sister Anne. ==Cork==