Born in Ireland, Paul studied drama at Trinity College Dublin and at Glasgow University. After graduating he worked as Production Manager for Project Arts Centre, for three years before embarking on a freelance career as a set and lighting designer. 

Paul has designed lighting for a number of production at The Abbey Theatre Dublin including; Heartbreak House, The Risen People, Drum Belly, Curse of the Starving Class, The Rivals, B for Baby, No Escape, Ages of the Moon, Marble, Lay Me Down Softly, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Woman and Scarecrow, The School for Scandal, Homeland (also set design) The Electrocution of Children, Amazing Grace, Living Quarters, Making History, The Map Maker's Sorrow, Cúirt an Mheán Oíche, Mrs Warren's Profession, Bailegangáire, Down the Line, Eden, The Wild Duck, The Cherry Orchard, Portia Coughlan and Heavenly Bodies.

Other lighting designs include; Breaking Dad, Between Foxrock and a Hard Place, Underneath The Lintel (Landmark Productions), A Tale of Two Cities (Royal & Derngate Northampton); Afterplay (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); The Epic Adventure of Nhamo, the Manika Warrior and his Sexy Wife Chipo (Tiata Fahodzi, Tricycle Theatre) Dublinswell (National Conference Centre, Dublin) Novecento (Trafalgar Studios, London); Harvest (Royal Court Theatre, London) Blue/Orange (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield and UK Tour) The Stock Da’Wa, Born Bad and In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, (Hampstead Theatre London) Big Maggie, Penelope, The Walworth Farce (Druid, Galway) Too Late for Logic (Edinburgh International Festival), Shimmer and Olga, (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh) The Crucible (Open Air Theatre, Regents Park, London) Mixed Marriage, The Blind Fiddler and Ghosts  (The Lyric Theatre, Belfast) Tiny Plays For Ireland 1&2 and Strandline (Fishamble) The Massacre at Paris (also set design) Quay West, Blasted and Far Away (Bedrock Productions) Down onto Blue, Danti Dan and Olga (Rough Magic) The Silver Tassie (Almeida Theatre London) The Tempest (Theatre Royal Plymouth and UK Tour) A Streetcar Named Desire, The Misanthrope and Tartuffe (Playhouse, Liverpool) Intemperance (Everyman, Liverpool).  A Streetcar Named Desire, Molly Sweeney (also set design), The Last Summer, The Birds, God of Carnage, Les Liaisons Dangereuses,  Festen, Performances, and  The Gates of Gold (Gate Theatre, Dublin).

He has designed set and lighting for; Ballads and The Rite of Spring (CoisCéim) Chair, Angel Babel  and Here Lies (Operating Theatre) Trad (Galway Arts Festival) The Sugar Wife (Rough Magic) Family Stories and Tejas Verdes (B*spoke) The Winter’s Tale, Request Programme, Plasticine, medEia, The Hairy Ape, Woyzeck (Corcadorca, Cork) Dead Man Walking and Turandot (Opera Ireland) Boss Grady’s Boys  (Gaiety Theatre, Dublin).

His lighting designs for dance include; No Man's Land and Firebird (English National Ballet) Hansel and Gretel (Royal Ballet) Sweat and Beautiful Tomorrow (ManDance) Macalla and Intimate Gold (Irish Modern Dance Theatre) SAMO, (Blok & Steel, Netherlands) and Catalyst, a collaboration between Rex Levitates and The National Ballet of China in Beijing.

Paul’s lighting designs for opera include; Maria de Buenos Aires (Cork Opera House) Don Quichotte, I Puritani, Les dialogues des Carmelites, Eugene Onegin, Idomeneo and Pique Dame (Grange Park Opera) La Bohème and Wake (Nationale Reisopera, Netherlands), The Lighthouse (Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte, Montepulciano, Italy), Die Zauberflöte (National Opera of Korea), The Makropulos Case, Un Ballo in Maschera and Der Fliegende Holländer (Opera Zuid, Netherlands). The Queen of Spades, Madama Butterfly, Lady Macbeth of Mtensk, The Silver Tassie (Opera Ireland); The Lighthouse (Opera Theatre Company); Thérèse/La Navarraise, Cristina Regina di Svezia,  Snegurochka, The Mines of Sulphur, Maria di Rohan, Pénélope, Susannah, Der Silbersee, Rusalka and Transformations (Wexford Festival Opera). 

Paul devised and directed Man of Aran, Re-imagined,  and co-wrote the libretto for Quicksilver the Opera.

He designed The Wishing Well, an outdoor projection piece for Kilkenny Arts Festival 1999, and the lighting for the Irish Pavilion at the Architectural Biennale in Venice 2004 and 2006. Paul was the recipient of the Gerard Arnhold Bursary at Wexford Festival Opera 2006.