Daniel Day-Lewis the second child of poet Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972) and his second wife, actress Jill Balcon (1925–2009). His older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis (born 1953), is a television chef and food critic. His father, who was born in the Irish town of Ballintubbert, County Laois, was of Protestant Anglo-Irish descent, lived in England from the age of two, and was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Daniel's mother was Jewish; her ancestors were immigrants to England in the late 19th century, from Latvia and Poland. Day-Lewis' maternal grandfather, Sir Michael Balcon, became the head of Ealing Studios, helping develop the new
Andrew Motion Festival in Halesworth, Suffolk in May 2011. Motion also featured in "Jamie's Dream School" in 2011 as the poetry teacher. In June 2012, he became the President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. In March 2014 he was elected an Honorary Fellow at Homerton College, Cambridge. Motion won the 2015 Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry for the radio programme "Coming Home". The production featured poetry by Motion based on recordings he made of British soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2017 Motion moved to Baltimore, Maryland to take up a post at