Life
1924- [Patrick Joseph O’Connor; pseud. Padraic Fiacc; var. Pádraic;
known as Joe]; b. 15 April, Elizabeth St., Lower Falls, Belfast, eldest
son of Bernard O’Connor and Annie Christna McGarry, the former a
Belfast barman and IRA activist; moved to stay with his grandmother, who
was burnt out of her home in Lisburn after the killing of Police Inspector
Swanzi; returned to Belfast and an alcohol father; father emigrated to
New York in the late 1920s, and was reluctantly joined by his wife with
three sons in 1929; lived in Hell’s Kitchen; intended to manage father’s
two grocery stores, bankrupted in Crash; ed. Commerce and Haaren High
Schools, Manhattan, among, predominantly African-Americans; submitted ‘Inisfail
Lost’, a manuscript on the Irish emigrant experience, to Macmillan
and met Padraic Colum, who encouraged him (‘Write of your own people
- Dig in the garden of Ireland’); received from Mary Colum her trans.
of Rimbaud’s Le bâteau Ivre (as The Drunken Boat); entered
St. Joseph’s Seminary, Calicoon, NY State, 1941; wrote ‘Der
Bomben Poet’, his ‘first real poem’; abandoned study for
priesthood, 1946; also briefly studied at Holyoak, Delaware, where he
wrote verse play, Fire (dealing with St Patrick); returned to Belfast
in 1946 on board Swedish ship Neutral [ORM err. 1936]; worked in
Belfast as night porter, writing poetry; commenced publishing poetry,
1948; death of mother, 1950; returned to New York to look after sister;
m. Nancy Wayne, of Detroit, a painter, 1956; m. Wayne in Belfast and settled
in Glengormley; in unpublished collection, Woe to the Boy, won
AE [George Russell] Memorial Award for Poetry, 1957 - in competition with
Tom Kinsella and John Montague; issued By the Black Stream (1969),
with a title after Joyce’s poem (‘I bleed ... for my torn bough’);
suffered death of Gerry McLoughlin, a young friend assassinated in the
Troubles, 1975; marriage disintegrated, his wife and daughter moving to
Limerick; issued Odour of Blood (1973); ed.
anthology, The Wearing of the Black (1974); Arts Council Awards,
1976, 1980; Poetry Ireland Award, 1981; elected member of Aosdana, 1981;
writes in Linen Hall Library; Missa Terribilis (1986); Ruined
Pages: Selected Poems (1994); Red Earth (1995); lives at Wellesley
Ave., Glengormley; dg., Bridget, a doctor, lives in Ballycastle; there
is a 2-tape tv. programme, “Atlantic Crossing”, produced by
Paul Muldoon [q.d.]. DIW DIL ORM OCIL FDA
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Works
Poetry, Woe to the Boy (1957; rep. Belfast: Lapwing 1994),
54pp.; By the Black Stream: Selected Poems 1947-1967 (Dublin: Dolmen
1969); Odour of Blood (Kildare: Goldsmith 1973); Nights in
the Bad Place (Belfast: Blackstaff 1977); The Selected Padraic
Fiacc, intro. Terence Brown (Belfast: Blackstaff 1979), 69pp.; Missa
Terribilis: Poems (Belfast: Blackstaff 1986), 72pp.; Aodán
Mac Póilin, ed., Ruined Pages: Selected Poems ([Belfast:
Blackstaff]1994), 171pp., contains Biographical Outline [13-16] and autobiographical
fragment [‘Hell’s Kitchen’, pp.151-166]; Red Earth (Belfast:
Lagan Press 1996), 68pp. [ded. to Norman Dugdale; sections, Conor’,
Mac Cuhal’, Mac Erca’, ‘Brian’, and ‘Adam Street’].
Miscellaneous, ed., The Wearing of the Black: An Anthology of Contemporary Ulster Poetry (Belfast: Blackstaff 1974) [contains Fiacc (21 poems); Hewitt (13); Heaney (9); Michal Brophy (8); Gerald Dawe (7), also Muldoon (2); George Buchanan, Ciaran Carson; Geoffrey Squires; Mahon, Montague, Longley, Deane, Meta Mayne Reid (6), Roy McFadden, Trevor MacMahon, Robert Greacen, &c.]. Contribs. incl. ‘An Ulsterman’s Search For Identity’, Hibernia (26 Apr. 1974), p.11 [poem].
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Criticism
Terence Brown, ‘Pádraic Fiacc, The Bleeding Bough’, in
Northern Voices, Poets from Ulster (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan
1975), pp.141-48.
Gerald Dawe, ‘Secret Being, the Poetry of Padraic Fiacc’, in Honest Ulsterman, No. 67 (Oct 1980-Feb. 1981), pp.71-82.
Terence Brown, intro., The Selected Padraic Fiacc (Belfast: Blackstaff 1979).
Francis Hagan, ‘Failure as a Strategy in the Poetry of Padraic Fiacc’, in Honest Ulsterman (Autumn 1994), pp.5-9.
Brendan Hamill on Fiacc, in Krino (Summer 1995).
Michael Parker, review article on Ruined Pages, Selected Poems, in Irish Studies Review (Jan. 1996), pp.46-50 [with photo-port.].
Gerald Dawe, ‘Finding the Language: Poetry, Belfast, and the Past’, New Hibernia Review, 1, 1 (Spring 1997), pp.9-18.
‘Padriac Fiacc: Poet of the Pagan City’, Supplement to Fortnight 370 (May 1998), 19pp., photo-ports. [contribs. with Fiacc, Paul Grattan; Chris Agee, Damian Smyth, John Minahan, John Brown (interview)].
Pádraig Ó Snodaigh & Aogán Ó Muircheartaigh, Vae Puero: Athleaganacha ar dhánta le Padraic Fiacc (Baile Atha Cliath: Coiscéim), 48pp.
John Brown, interview with Padraic Fiacc, in Fiacc Supplement, Fortnight (May 1998).
Patrick Ramsay, review of Patrick Crotty, Contemporary Irish Poetry (1995), in Fortnight Review, Jan. 1995, p.33.
Patricia Craig reviewing Frank Ormsby, ed., Rage for Order; poetry of the Trouble (TLS Review, 19.2.1993), p.27.
Brendan Hamill, ‘Many More Bright Aprils’, appraisal of Fiacc in Fortnight Review, 327 (Apr. 1994), pp.45-56.
James Simmons, review of The Wearing of the Black, in The Honest Ulsterman, Nos. 46-47 (Nov. 1974-Feb. 1975), pp.67-71.
Robert McMillen, interview with Padraic Fiacc (Anderstown News, 3 Feb. 1997).
Fred Johnston, ‘A poet of Blakean wrath’, Irish Times, 8 Feb. 1997.
Michael Parker, ‘Elegies for Orszula’, reviewing Seamus Heaney, trans., Jan Kochanowski, Laments (1995), in TLS, 22 Mar. 1996, p.26.
Denis O’Donoghue, ‘We Irish’, in Hibernia, 1978.
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Notes
Anthologies (Sundry: New Irish Poets (NY 1948), incls. ‘Woe
to the Boy’; also included in James Simmons, ed., Ten Irish Poets
(Cheadle: Carcanet 1974) [‘Dirge’; ‘First Movement’;
‘The Poet and the Night’; ‘The Other Man’s Wound’;
‘Alive Alive O’; ‘Gloss’; ‘The British Connection’;
‘The Black and the White’; ‘Enemies]; Frank Ormsby, Poets
of the North of Ireland (1979; new rev. ed. 1990); Brendan Kennelly,
ed., Penguin Book of Irish Verse (1970); Derek Mahon, ed., Sphere
Book of Modern Irish Poetry (1972); Poetry One (London Arts
Council n.d); see also ‘Six Poems by Padraic Fiacc’, Fortnight
(May 1994), p.49 [all dealing with the troubles].
The Honest Ulsterman (contributions by Fiacc): ‘Morning Dark (for John McGahern’), No.3, p.29; ‘Listening to Debussy the Poet, No.10, p.13; ‘Three Holy Blue Flower People’, No. 10, p.27; ‘Three Poems’ [‘An Intimate Letter 1973’; Saint Coleman’s Song for Flight’; ‘Shadow, Love’], No. 55, pp.39-40; also prose, ‘Fiacc Answers Back’, No. 50, p.133. (See Tom Clyde, ed., Honest Ulsterman, Author Index, 1995.)
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3: selects from Nights in the Bad Place, ‘The British Connection’, ‘Credo, Credo’, ‘Soldiers’; BIOG, 1431.
Books in Print (1994): By the Black Stream (Dublin: Dolmen 1969); Odour of Blood (Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1973); Nights in the Bad Place (Belfast: Blackstaff 1977) [085640 111 0]; The Selected Padraic Fiacc, intro. Terence Brown (Belfast: Blackstaff 1979) [0 86540 151 X]; Missa Terribilis (Belfast: Blackstaff 1986) [0 85640 360 1]; Ruined Pages, Selected Poems, ed. Gerald Dawe and Aodán Mac Póilin (Belfast: Blackstaff 1994) [0-85640-529-9]
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)