J.P. Rodgers was born in Co. Galway. He left school at fifteen and at the age of sixteen had the first of his many letters read on Ireland's popular Radio Éireann programme Dear Sir or Madam. In 1963 he joined the mass exodus of Irish people who went to England in search of employment: there he worked as a bus conductor before immigrating to Australia in 1970.
In 1978 he moved back to his childhood home near Williamstown, Co. Galway, where he still lives with his wife.
