Johnson was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, into a mixed, unorthodox background: his father's side were Belfast, Methodist, and both Unionist and Trade unionist; his mother's side were Dublin, Catholic, followers of Michael Collins and admirers of the Queen. He spent the first seven years of his life in Toronto, Canada. He went to St Malachy's College's grammar school in Belfast from 1962–68. During these years he learnt guitar and banjo and listened to and played folk music. He performed on the cabaret lounge circuit, made appearances on Ulster TV, released some singles and, aged 16, an LP of rebel and football songs called The Flags Are Out for Celtic. After school he moved to Dublin and worked in journalism, writing for the Evening Press and The Belfast Telegraph, and in Public Relations. He had several prose pieces published in the New Irish Writing section of the Evening Press, and won a Hennessy Literary Award in 1972. In 1974 he met up with Neil Jordan and Peter Sheridan to found the Irish Writers' Co-operative, a publishing outlet for new Irish fiction. Early publications under its imprint Co-op Books were Desmond Hogan's The Ikon Maker and Ronan Sheehan's Tennis Players. He moved to Galway in 1978 and in 1979 published his first collection of poems, Life and Death in the Midlands, and a collection of short stories, Picture of a Girl in a Spanish Hat. In 1986 he founded the poetry festival Cúirt, which became an annual literary festival in Galway and is now one of the largest of its kind in Ireland. He ended his association with it in 1988. In the 1990s he formed an Irish traditional folk group, Parson's Hat, which released two albums: Cutty Wren and The Better Match. Tracks by the group have been included on a number of compilation albums. In 2000 he received the Prix de l'Ambassade Translation bursary to work on translations of the French poetMichel Martin. He has also translated the Senegalese poet Babacar Sall, and more recently the Breton poet Colette Wittorski. In 2004 he received The Ireland Fund of Monaco bursary to be writer-in-residence for a month at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco, where he continued working on his novel-in-progress The Neon Rose, wrote some new poems, and sourced some Monégasque poems which he later translated. In 2005 he founded the Western Writers' Centre, or in Irish Ionad Scríbhneoiri Chaitlín Maude, which bills itself as "the only writers' centre West of the Shannon". The centre holds readings, lectures, workshops and courses, and organises the Gort literary festival. He has released two solo albums, Get You and Local Papers. Johnston has been a regular poetry reviewer for Poetry Ireland Review and Books Ireland and on occasion for the Southern Humanities Review, The Irish Times and Harpers & Queen, and has contributed to the literary magazines Orbis, New Letters, The Southern Review, The Seneca Review, and Irish Studies Review.
