1904-1967; [Patrick Joseph Kavanagh] b. 21 Oct. [vars.: 22 Oct. in Iniskeen baptismal book, and 23 in civil register], in Mucker townland, Inniskeen [parish], Co. Monaghan; fourth child of James, small farmer and grandson of itinerant teacher with sixteen acres and a cobbler, and Bridget (née Quinn); the family house rebuilt by his father when he was five; ed. Kednaminsha National Sch.; influenced by Canon Bernard Maguire PP; leaves school, 1916; begins writing; earliest poems published by Dundalk Democrat and Weekly Independent, 1928; three poems printed by George Russell in The Irish Statesman during 1929-30; walked to Dublin, 1931; appt. Captain and Treasurer of the GAA team; his poem “The Ploughman” incl. in Best Poems of 1930 by ed. Thomas Moult (Jon. Cape); “Beech Tree”, “The Goat of Slieve Donard”, and “To a Child” printed in poems in Dublin Magazine (Oct-Dec 1931); frequently contrib. to same up to 1939; “Ascetic” printed in John O’London’s (May 1931); “To a Blackbird” and “Gold Watch” printed in Spectator (resp. 9 May & 20 June 1931); walked to Dublin to meet George “AE” Russell over the days of 18th-20th, arriving at a time when Russell was enduring the final illness of his wife; encouraged by Frank OConnor, to whom Russell introduced him before leaving Ireland; issued his first collection, Ploughman and Other Poems (Macmillan 1936); moved to London in search of literary work, May 1937; encouraged by Helen Waddell to write The Green Fool (1938), an autobiographical novel published by Michael Joseph in May 1938 and suppressed after court action initiated by Oliver St. John Gogarty; returned to Dublin, August 1939 (‘the worst mistake of my life’); his long poem “The Great Hunger” appeared in Horizon (1942), and was seized by Irish police at customs; refused contribution to Greacen and Iremonger, eds., Contemporary Irish Poetry (Faber 1943) - the former having reviewed it for Horizon [viz., Cyril Connolly]; issued “The Paddiad or the Devil as Patron of Irish Letters”, which includes satires on Higgins, Clarke, F. R. Higgins and others under more secular characters names such as Paddy Whiskey, Paddy Rum and Gin, Paddy of the Celtic Mist, Paddy Connemara West, the self being ‘Paddy Conscience’, first appearing in a wartime issue of Horizon [rep. Coll. Poems, p.90]; wrote Lough Derg, 1942 (publ. 1971); lived at 19, Raglan Rd.; abstained from Roger McHugh and Valentin Iremonger’s protests against Abbey standards (‘two publicity chancers’), Dec 1947; issued Soul for Sale (1947); issued Tarry Flynn (1948), more realistic than the former autobiography, and called by him ‘not only the best but the only authentic account of life as it was lived in Ireland this century’; briefly banned and reissued in 1962; stage adaptation by P. J. O’Connor, Abbey 1967; wrote film criticism and columns for Catholic Standard under editorship of Peadar O’Curry (writing sternly about Yeats and the Literary revival); ‘Letter on Irish Censorship’, Kavanagh’s lecture tour grant of Cultural Relations Committee, granted May 1951, vetoed by Frank Aiken, Aug. 1951; drank in celebration of the accidental destruction of the Abbey Theatre by fire with Anthony Cronin, John Ryan, and Paddy Swift (‘It gave great pleasure to all the right people’); living in penjury at Pembroke Road; edited the outspoken paper Kavanagh’s Weekly, subtitled ‘a journal of literature and politics’ (13 issues; 12 April-5 July 1952), contributing most of the articles and poems, usually under a variety of pseudonyms; includes ‘I Had a Future’ and ‘Having Confessed’ and the well-known passage in which he favourably distinguishes ‘parochialism’ from ‘provincialism’; financed, designed and distributed by his brother Peter [contrib. as ‘John L. Flanagan’]; vehemently opposed Fianna Fáil and critical of Ireland’s economic and cultural achievements since Independence; subsisted on two advertisers; donation of £1000 sought in penultimate number no worthcoming; unsuccessful action against The Leader (then being edited by Brian Inglis), for a profile which he supposed to have been written by Valentin Iremonger with Desmond Williams and perhaps Brendan Behan’s help, Feb. 1954 [err. 1952]; harshly cross-examined by John A. Costello, defending the Leader, 1955; contributed to John Ryan, ed., Envoy; secured lecturing employment at UCD through intervention of John A. Costello (then Taoiseach); ten lectures given at UCD in 1956 (extracts of which are incl. in November Haggard); cancer diagnosed, March 1955; experienced spiritual renewal during convalescence; Recent Poems (1958) was published by Peter Kavanagh Hand Press; issued Come Dance with Kitty Stobling (1960), poems; recorded Self-Portrait (Radio Telefís Éireann 1963; publ. 1964); issued Collected Poems, (1964); lectured at Northwestern University, USA, 1965; fell in love with Kath[a]rine Barry Maloney, a neice of Kevin Barry and a close friend of Kavanagh’s for some years in London, having met each other in Leland Bardwell’s flat; m. April 1967; returned to Dublin together; issued Collected Pruse (1967); attended numerous performances of Tarry Flynn, the stage-production of his novel, with Donal McCann in lead (Abbey 1966); travelled to Dundalk for provincial tour, and fell ill while visiting his family in Mucker; taken to nursing home on Merrion St., Dublin, and died after brief recovery, d. 30 Nov.; John Montague read poems at his grave; the Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry was founded in 1971; The Great Hunger was dramatised by Tom MacIntyre, and staged to great acclaim in Dublin (Abbey 1983), dir. by Patrick Mason with Tom Hickey in lead; toured successfully in London, New York; a full-scale figure of Kavanagh seated on a Canal Bench was unveiled in situ by Mary Robinson in 1991; the standard biography is by Antoinette Quinn while an uncompleted biography by Augustine Martin was in preparation at his death in 1996; Tarry Flynn adapted by Conall Morrison (Abbey; May 26, 1997) with Coiscéim Co. dancers and roles for both Tarry and Kavanagh himself, touring successfully to Lyttelton Theatre, London; commemorated in “The Pool in Which the Poet Dips”, ed. Bernard Clarke, 21 Oct. 2004; Katharine bur. with Kavanagh in Iniskeen, 1989. NCBE IF2 DIB DIW DIH DIL G20 OCEL HAM DUB OCIL
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Poetry
Ploughman and Other Poems (London: Macmillan 1936); The Great Hunger (Dublin: Cuala Press 1942); A Soul for Sale (London: Macmillan 1947), 55pp.; Come Come Dance With Kitty Stobling and Other Poems (London: Longmans, Green & Co 1960); Collected Poems of Patrick Kavanagh (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1964), xv+202pp. [with pref. by the author]; Lough Derg [1971] (Newbridge, Kildare: Goldsmith Press 1978; London: MacGibbon & Kee 1979); Antoinette Quinn, ed., Selected Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1996). Query, Recent Poems (?1958). New Editions, Peter Kavanagh, ed., The Complete Poems (Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1990).
Prose
The Green Fool (London: Michael Joseph 1938), Do. [rep. edn.] (London: Martin Brian & O’Keeffe 1971; Harmonsworth: Penguin 1976); Tarry Flynn (London: Pilot Press 1948; NY: Devin 1949); Do. [rep. edn.] (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1965, 1972), 256pp.; and Do.[another edn.] (London: Mayflower 1969); Self Portrait (Dublin: Dolmen 1964); Collected Pruse (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1967, 1973), 287pp., front. port. from drawing by Seán O’Sullivan [err. 'Prose' in FDA & OCIL]; November Haggard (NY: Peter Kavanagh Hand Press 1972); Peter Kavanagh, ed., By Night Unstarred (NY: Peter Kavanagh Hand Press; Kildare: Goldsmith Press 1978). Also Antoinette Quinn, ed., A Poet’s Country: Selected Prose of Patrick Kavanagh (Dublin: Lilliput Press 2002), 352pp.
Articles incl. ‘Poetry in Ireland Today’, The Bell, Vol. XVI, No. 1 (Apr. 1948); also preface (pp.11-14) to William Steuart Trench, Realities of Irish Life [abridged] (1966).
Miscellaneous, ‘Letter on Irish Censorship’, in New Statesman, XXXVII, 935 (5 February 1949), p.130; Foreword to Autobiography of William Allingham (London: McGibbon & Kee, [1968]); Preface to Autobiography of William Carleton (London: McGibbon & Kee 1968); Kavanagh’s Weekly: A Journal of Literature and Politics [facs. rep. of 13 issue series of 1952] (Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1981). Note also ‘The Paddiad’, in Soul for Sale; Tom MacIntyre, The Great Hunger: Poem into Play, Essay and Texts (Mullingar: Lilliput 1988). ‘Who Killed James Joyce?’, in John Ryan, ed., A Bash in the Tunnel ( Brighton: Clifton Books 1970), pp.49-52 [prev. in Envoy, April 1951; infra].
Correspondence, Kavanagh, ‘Letter on Irish Censorship’, in New Statesman, XXXVII, 935 (5 February 1949), p.130; Robert Greacen, ‘Reply to Patrick Kavanagh’, New Statesman XXXVII, 936 (12 February 1949), p.154; Ewart Milne, ‘Reply to Patrick Kavanagh’, New Statesman, XXXVII, 935 (12 February 1949), pp.155. [All cited in Gerry Smyth, Decolonisation and Criticism: The Construction of Irish Literature (London: Pluto Press 1998), Bibl.]
Bibliographical details
EDITIONS published by Peter Kavanagh: Lapped Furrows: Correspondence, 1933-67 (NY: Peter Kavanagh Hand Press 1968) [var. 1969]; November Haggard: Uncollected Prose and Verse (NY Peter Kavanagh Hand Press 1971); The Complete Poems (NY Peter Kavanagh Hand Press 1972), and Do., [rep. edn.] (Newbridge, Co Kildare: Goldsmith Press 1984; 1990); Peter Kavanagh, ed., By Night Unstarred, (NY: Peter Kavanagh Hand Press; Kildare: Goldsmith Press 1977); Love’s Tortured Headland (NY Peter Kavanagh Hand Press 1978) [ltd. edn. 600; cont. of Lapped Furrows]. Further posthumous works published under contested agreements by The Peter Kavanagh Hand Press, 250 East 30th St., NY, and by The Goldsmith Press in Kildare, Ireland [assoc. with Desmond Egan], incl. Night Unstarred (Newbridge, Kildare: Goldsmith Press 1977); Lough Derg (Newbridge, Kildare: Goldsmith Press 1978); Peter Kavanagh, ed., A Guide to Patrick Kavanagh Country (Newbridge, Kildare: Goldsmith Press 1978); and Goldsmith Poetry Calendar, with a selection of poems chosen by Peter Kavanagh (Newbridge, Kildare: Goldsmith Press 1980). [See Hibernia, 15 Jan 1980, an account posthumous publications undertaken by Peter Kavanagh given by ‘NOF’, i.e., Nuala O’Faolain].
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James Plunkett [on Kavanagh], The Bell (1952).
John Hewitt, ‘The Cobbler’s Song: Poetry of Patrick Kavanagh’ Threshold Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 1961), pp.45-51.
John Jordan [on Kavanagh], Poetry Ireland (Summer 1964) [q.pp.].
Douglas Sealy, ‘The Writings of Patrick Kavanagh’, The Dublin Magazine 3 (Winter 1965), pp.5-23.
Derek Mahon, ‘Patrick Kavanagh’, The Dublin Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring 1968), pp.6-8.
P[atrick] Duffy, ‘Patrick Kavanagh’s Rural Landscape’, Baile (1968), pp.3-5.
Grattan Freyer, ‘Patrick Kavanagh', Éire-Ireland, 3, 4 (Winter 1968), pp.17-23.
Brendan Kennelly, ‘Patrick Kavanagh’, in Ariel (July 1970), pp.7-28 [infra].
Kennelly, ‘Patrick Kavanagh’, in Seán Lucy, ed., Irish Poems in English (Cork: Mercier Press 1972), pp.159-84 [on ‘the Comic Muse’].
Jude the Obscure [pseud.], critique of Kavanagh, in The Honest Ulsterman (Jan./Feb. 1972).
Anon. [Vivian Mercier], ‘Kavanagh’s Explosive Legacy’ [unsigned review article on the Letters], in Profile, 1973, pp.41-43.
Alan Warner, ‘Patrick Kavanagh’, A Guide to Anglo-Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1981), pp.72-108.
Alan Warner, Clay is the Word: Patrick Kavanagh 1904-1967 (Dublin: Dolmen 1973), 144pp. John Nemo, ‘A Bibliography of Materials By and About Patrick Kavanagh’, in Irish University Review, 3, 1 (Spring 1973), pp.80-106.
John Nemo, ‘The Green Knight, Patrick Kavanagh’s Venture into Criticism’, in Studies, 63 (Autumn 1974), pp.282-94.
John Nemo, ‘A Joust with the Philistines: Patrick Kavanagh’s Cultural Criticism’, in Journal of Irish Literature, Vol. 4 (1975) [cp.67].
Darcy O’Brien, Patrick Kavanagh (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP 1975), 72pp..
Michael Allen, ‘Provincialism and Recent Irish Poetry, The Importance of Patrick Kavanagh’ in Douglas Dunn, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing (1975), pp.23-36.
Seamus Heaney, ‘The Poetry of Patrick Kavanagh: From Monaghan to the Grand Canal’, in Douglas Dunn, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing (Cheshire: Carcanet Press 1975), pp.105-17 [rep. in Preoccupations, 1980, q.pp..
John Ryan, Remembering How We Stood (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan [1975]) [q.pp.].
Terence Brown, ‘Conclusion: With Kavanagh in Mind’, in Northern Voices: Poets from Ulster (Cheadle: Carcanet 1975), pp.214-21.
Anthony Cronin, ‘Patrick Kavanagh’, in Dead as Doornails: A Chronicle of Life (London: Grafton 1976).
Paul Durcan, 'Foreword' to Patrick Kavanagh’s Lough Derg (London: Martin, Brian & O’Keeffe 1978), pp.vii-ix.
Robert Welch, ‘Language as a Pilgrimage, Lough Derg Poems of Patrick Kavanagh and Denis Devlin', in Irish University Review, Vol. 13, No.1 (?1978), pp.54-66.
John Wilson Foster, ‘The Poetry of Kavanagh: A Reappraisal’, in Mosaic, XII, 3 (1979), pp.139-52 [rep. in Colonial Consequences (1991), pp.97-113], Weldon Thornton, ‘Virgin or Hungry Fiend? The Failures of the Imagination in Patrick Kavanagh’s The Great Hunger,’ in Mosaic, XII, 3 (Spring 1979), 152-62.
John Nemo, Patrick Kavanagh (London: George Prior 1979) [infra], also [English Author Ser.] (NY: Twayne 1979), 166pp., port. Do., another edn. (London: George Prior 1979).
Terence Brown, ‘After the Revival: The Problem of Adequacy and Genre’, in Ronald Schleifer, ed., The Genres of Irish Literary Revival (Oklahoma: Pilgrim; Dublin: Wolfhound Press 1980), pp.153-78, pp.165ff. [infra]; rep. in Ireland’s Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1988) [Chap. 7].
Peter Kavanagh, Sacred Keeper: A Biography of Patrick Kavanagh (Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1979 [var. 1980]; Maine: National Poetry Foundation 1988).
Anthony Cronin, ‘Patrick Kavanagh: Alive and Well in Dublin’, in Heritage Now: Irish Literature in the English Language (Dingle: Brandon 1982), pp.185-96.
Michael O’Loughlin, After Kavanagh: Patrick Kavanagh and the Discourse of Contemporary Irish Poetry (Dublin: Raven Arts Press 1985), 38pp.
Hubert Butler, ‘Envoy and Mr Kavanagh’ [1954], rep. in Escape from the Anthill (Dublin: Lilliput 1985) [rep. in Roy Foster, ed. The Sub-Prefect Should Have Held His Tongue, Dublin: Lilliput Press 1990, pp.83-91].
G. H. M. Brian Baird, ‘The Other Man Concealed’, Patrick Kavanagh’s Cultural Criticism - A Cryptic Autobiography?’, in Heinz Kosok, ed., Studies in Anglo-Irish Literature (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag 1982), cp.360.
Hugh Kenner (‘Two Eccentrics’ in A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers, 1984) [chap. on Kavanagh and Austin Clarke], pp.293-317, espec. 293-307.
Robert F. Garratt, ‘Tradition and Continuity, II: Patrick Kavanagh’, in Modern Irish Poetry: Tradition and Continuity from Yeats to Heaney (California UP 1986), pp.137-66.
Peter Kavanagh, ed., Patrick Kavanagh: Man and Poet (Maine: Nat. Poetry Foundation 1986; Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1987) [incl. Augustine Martin, ‘The Apocalypse of Clay: Technique and Vision in the Great Hunger’, et al.].
Patrick J. Duffy, ‘Patrick Kavanagh’s Landscape’, in Éire Ireland, 21, 3 (1986), pp.105-18.
Ruth Fleischmann, ‘Old Irish and Classical Pastoral Elements in Patrick Kavanagh’s Tarry Flynn’, in Wolfgang Zach & Heinz Kosok eds., Literary Interrelations: Ireland, England and the World, Vol. II: Comparison and Impact (Tübingen: Guntar Narr Verlag 1987), pp.311-22.
Seamus Heaney, ‘The Placeless Heaven: Another Look at Kavanagh’, in The Government of the Tongue (London: Faber & Faber 1988), pp.3-14 [infra].
Margaret McAuley, ‘The Anglo-Irish Idiom in the Works of Patrick Kavanagh, Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon’ (UUC MA thesis [1989]), 87pp.
Allison Muri, ‘Paganism and Christianity in Kavanagh’s The Great Hunger, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (December 1990), pp. 66-78.
Antoinette Quinn, Patrick Kavanagh: Born-Again Romantic (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1991), xi, 493pp. [infra], and Do., publ. in USA as Patrick Kavanagh: A Critical Study (Syracuse UP 1991).
Desmond O’Grady, ‘Paddy Kavanagh in Rome, 1967’, in Poetry Ireland Review (Spring 1992), pp.14-24, cont. in next issue.
Tom Collins, ‘Personality, Place, and Identity’ Irish Reporter, No.10, 1993, p.6.
Thomas B. O’Grady, ‘“The Parish and the Universe”: a comparative study of Patrick Kavanagh and William Carleton, Studies (Spring 1996), pp.17-25.
Jonathan Allison, Patrick Kavanagh: A Reference Guide (NY: G. K. Hall; London: Prentice Hall Intl. [1996]), xxviii, 218pp.
Sr. Una Agnew [Order of St. Louis], The Mystical Imagination of Patrick Kavanagh: A Buttonhole in Heaven? (Dublin: Columba Press 1998), 285pp.
Antoinette Quinn, Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 2001), 542pp. [pb. 2003].
Robert Greacen, Rooted in Ulster: Nine Northern Writers (Belfast: Lagan Press 2001), 130pp.
Tom Stack, No Earthly Estate: The Religious Poetry of Patrick Kavanagh (Dublin: Columba Press 2002), 176pp.
Declan Kiberd, ‘Underdeveloped Comedy: Patrick Kavanagh’, in Irish Classics (London: Granta 2000), pp.590-601.
Jonathan Allison, ‘Patrick Kavanagh and Antipastoral’, in Matthew Campbell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry (Cambridge UP 2003), pp.42-58.
Patrick Kavanagh Centenary Year incl. lectures by Seamus Heaney, ‘Patrick Kavanagh’s Essential Gesture’ Patrick Kavanagh Centre, Inniskeen, Co. Monaghan, 26 Nov. 2004, and ‘The Fire i the Flint’, an inaugural lecture on Kavanagh in the series of the name at St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, 25 Nov.)
Brendan Kennelly, ‘Patrick Kavanagh’, in Ariel, July 1970, p.11.
Brendan Kennelly, Note to Penguin Book of Irish Verse, 1981, pp.41-42; cited in Edna Longley, The Living Stream, 1994, p.213.)
Alan Warner, Clay is the Word, 1973, p.72)
Anthony Cronin, in Irish Times, 1977.
Rory Brennan, review of Antoinette Quinn’s Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography (2003), in Books Ireland, Feb. 2004, p.20.
Michael Allen, in Douglas Dunn, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing, 1975, p.32).
Terence Brown, Northern Voices, 1975, p.219.
Terence Brown, Ireland’s Literature: Selected Essays, Lilliput 1988, p.109-110).
Eavan Boland, Memories of Kavanagh, The Irish Times, 20 Nov. 1981.
John Nemo, Patrick Kavanagh, London: George Prior 1979, pp. 26, 33.
Richard Fallis, The Irish Renaissance: An Introduction to Anglo-Irish Literature, Gill & Macmillan 1978, p.262).
Adele Dalsimer, in M. Harmon, ed., The Irish Writer and the City, Gerrards Cross 1984.
Dillon Johnston, ‘Kavanagh and Heaney’, in Irish Poetry After Joyce, Notre Dame UP 1985, pp.121-66).
Declan Kiberd, Anglo-Irish Attitudes [Field Day Pamphlets, No. 6], Derry 1984, p.19.
Maurice Harmon, in Masaru Sekine, ed., Irish Writers and Society at Large, Gerrards Cross, 1985, pp.37-38).
Seamus Deane, A Short History of Irish Literature, 1986, p.232-35, p.233.
Seamus Deane, Celtic Revivals (1988), viz., pp.146-47, &c.
Paul Durcan, Going to Russia, 1987, p.23.
Seamus Heaney, ‘The Poetry of Patrick Kavanagh: From Monaghan to the Grand Canal’, in Douglas Dunn, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing: A Critical Survey (Carcanet 1975), pp.105-117.
Seamus Heaney, ‘The Placeless Heaven: Another Look at Kavanagh’, in The Government of The Tongue (London; Faber & Faber 1988), pp.3-15.
Seamus Heaney, ‘A Tale of Two Islands: Reflections on The Irish Literary Revival’, in P. J. Drury, ed., Irish Studies, I, Cambridge UP 1980, p.15).
Seamus Heaney, ‘In the light of the imagination’, The Irish Times (21 Oct. 2004).
Edna Longley, The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland, Newcastle-on-Tyne: Bloodaxe 1994, p.204, 219.)
J. F. Deane, Irish Poetry of Faith and Doubt, Dublin: Wolfhound Press 1991, Introduction, p.14.
Brian Inglis, Downstart (London: Chatto & Windus 1990).
Terence Brown, ‘Conclusion: With Kavanagh in Mind’, in Two Decades of Irish Writing (Cheadle: Carcanet 1975), pp.214-21.
John Wilson Foster, ‘The Geography of Irish Fiction’, in Rafroidi and Maurice Harmon, eds., The Irish Novel in Our Time (Université de Lille 1975-76), pp.90-103.
Timothy O’Keeffe [publisher], reviewing Peter Kavanagh, Sacred Keeper: A Biography of Patrick Kavanagh (Goldsmith 1979), in Hibernia, 7 Feb. 1980.
Francis Stuart, ‘Earthly Visionary’, in Peter Kavanagh, ed., Patrick Kavanagh: Man and Poet, Maine Univ at Orono 1986, pp.383-86; orig. in Hibernia, 25 July 1975.
Alan Peacock, ‘Received Religion and Secular Vision: MacNeice and Kavanagh’, Irish Writers and Religion, ed. Robert Welch, Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1992, pp.148-68.)
Antoinette Quinn, Patrick Kavanagh: Born-Again Romantic (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1991).
Alan Peacock, ‘Received Religion and Secular Vision: MacNeice and Kavanagh’, in Robert Welch, ed., Irish Writers and Religion (Colin Smythe 1992), pp.148-68.
Kevin Whelan, ‘The Bases of Regionalism’, in Prionsias Ó Drisceoil, ed., Culture in Ireland - Regions: Identity and Power [Proceedings of the Cultures of Ireland Group Conference] (Belfast: QUB/IIS 1993).
Patrick Crotty, ed., Modern Irish Poetry (Belfast: Blackstaff 1995), Introduction.
Anthony Cronin, ‘The Great Humour’, feature-article on Patrick Kavanagh, Magill (Oct. 1997),p.51.
Gerry Smyth, ‘The Moment of Kavanagh’s Weekly’, Decolonisation and Criticism: The Construction of Irish Literature (London: Pluto Press 1998), pp.103-12.
Sean Mac Reamoinn, ‘Singing the God in the Tree’ [‘Was Patrick Kavanagh a Christian Mystic? Sean MacReammoin is unconvinced’], review of Una Agnew, The Mystical Imagination of Patrick Kavanagh: A Buttonhole in Heaven? (Dublin: Columba Press), in The Irish Times, 13 Feb. 1999.
Kevin Kiely, review of Una Agnew, The Mystical Imagination of Patrick Kavanagh: “A buttonhole in Heaven?” (Columba Press 1985), in Books Ireland, May 1999, pp.142-43.
David Krause, memoir of Liam Miller, Irish Literary Supplement [Boston], Fall 1992).
Antoinette Quinn, ‘The Closet Poet’, extract from Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, in The Irish Times [Weekend] (17 Nov. 2001).
John Montague, ‘Monaghan Man’, review of Antoinette Quinn, Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 2001), in The Irish Times [Weekend], 17 Nov. 2001.
Patrick Kavanagh, “Self-Portrait”, in Collected Pruse, 1967, p.21.
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction, Part II (Cork: Royal Carbery Books 1985), p.131.
Christopher Ricks, review article on Antoinette Quinn, Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, in Books Ireland, Feb. 2002, p.17.
Robert Greacen, ‘Sixty Years On’, in Books Ireland, Feb. 2002, p.17.
Martin Green, in ‘Letters’, Times Literary Supplement, 13 Dec. 2003.
J. Howard Woolmer replies (Do., Times Literary Supplement, 3 Jan. 2003.
Rory Brennan, reviewing Antoinette Quinn, Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, in Books Ireland, Feb. 2004.
Patrick Kavanagh: A Life Chronicle (2001) 440pp.; Irish Times review, 7 April 2001.). [ISBN 0 914612158, 35 Park Ave., NY, 10016, USA, e-mail sacredkeeper@earthlink.net)
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Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985), gives err. birthdate of b.1906.
Frank Ormsby, ed., Northern Windows: An Anthology of Ulster autobiography (Belfast: Blackstaff 1987), contains extract from The Green Fool (1971 edn.), in which the following: ‘Tarry Flynn once told his mother that in a hundred years time the only thing his home place would be famous for was the he had once lived there amongst the pigs’ (here pp.92-106).
Grattan Freyer, ed., Modern Irish Writing (1979), selects poems: "Ploughman"; "Canal Bank Walk"; The Great Hunger" [complete]; "In Memory of My Mother".
Maurice Harmon, ed., Irish Poetry After Yeats, Seven Poets (Dublin: Wolfhound Press 1979), includes selection of poetry.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3, selects from The Great Hunger; A Soul for Sale; Come Dance with Kitty Stobling; Collected Poems; November Haggard; also from Self Portrait. BIOG & COMM, 168-69 [as supra].
Portrait: There is a portrait in charcoal by Seán O’Sullivan (Nat. Gallery of Ireland), and another by Edward Maguire.
Kavanagh’s Weekly, ran 13 issues to Sat., July 5 1952, ending with the editorial "The Story of an Editor Who Was Corrupted by Love" [headline banner]: ‘Our main problem was two-headed. First, there was the absence of writers and secondly, the absence of an audience’. Further, ‘It is the need of the audience which produces the [poet’s] voice ... although there is no ultiamate audience there is [in Ireland] just enough coqeutry to draw out writers who are then left with a hunger which cannot be satisfied within that society.’ (Kavanagh’s Weekly, No. 13; 5 July 1952, p.1; quoted in Eilean Ní Chuilleanáin, ‘Borderlands of Irish Poetry’, in Elmer Andrews, ed., Contemporary Irish Poetry: A Collection of Critical Essays (Macmillan 1996), pp.25-40, p.27.)
Donagh MacDonagh, ed., Poems from Ireland (Dublin: The Irish Times 1944), contains bio-note: ‘The publication of his important poem, The Great Hunger by the Cuala Press, placed him in the first rank of Irish poets. A Monaghan man, he speaks with the ruggedness of the country and the strength of the poet who can afford to break the rules.’
Myles Na gCopaleen [Flann O’Brien] writes, ‘Mr Patrick kavanagh was recently reported as having declared that “there is no such thing as Gaelic literature”. This is hard luck on the institute of Advanced Studies, who are supposed to be looking into the thing. I attended the Book Fair in the Mansion House the other evening in the hope of overhearing other similar pronouncements from the writing persons who infest such a place. I heard plenty, and have recorded it in my note-books under “Stuff To Be Used If Certain People Put Their Heads Out”.’ (The Best of Myles, ed. Kevin O’Nolan, 1987 &c. Edns., p.201.
The authorised edition of the poem Lough Derg has been published by Martin Brian & O’Keeffe (London 1979) [ISBN 0 85616 161 6]. The first reprint edition appeared in Peter Kavanagh’s edn. of November Haggard (1971), taken from the manuscript in his possession and later reprinted in his edition of the Complete Poems (1972). An account of the transactions between Peter and Patrick regarding that manuscript is given in the foreword to the Goldsmith rep. edition of the poem (1978).
Prionsias Ó Drisceoil, ed., Culture in Ireland, Regions, Identity and Power (QUB: Inst. of Irish Studies 1993), is ‘dedicated to the example of Hubert Butler, a lifelong campaigner for cultural understanding, and to Patrick Kavanagh, through whose poetry we have on record, some of the greatest insights into life in rural Ireland’. Editor quotes from "Epic": ‘... Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind. He said, I made the Iliad from such a local row. Gods make their own importance.’ [See however, Butler’s ‘Envoy and Mr Kavanagh’ [1954], in Escape from the Anthill, Lilliput 1985, and rep. in Roy Foster, ed. The Sub-Prefect Should Have Held His Tongue, Dublin: Lilliput 1990, pp.83-91.)]
Paul Durcan’s poem, "What Shall I Wear, Darling, to The Great Hunger" (in Going Home to Russia, 1987, p.23). Note also that Durcan’s poem "November 1967" gives an account of his ’s reaction to the news of the death of Kavanagh: ‘He was pure straight; God rest him; not like us.’ (The Selected Paul Durcan, ed. Edna Longley, 1982, p.8.).
F. R. Higgins was described by Kavanagh as an example of the literary revival ‘dabbler’ in "The Gallivanting Poet", in Irish Writing, 3 (Nov. 1947) [See under F. R. Higgins, Rx]
Tarry Flynn was adapted for the Abbey Stage (May 26 1997) by Conall Morrison for a cast of 29, incl. dancers from Coiscéim Co.; with Niall O’Brien and James Kennedy as Kavanagh and Tarry (see Irish Times, 17 May 1997). Also, Tarry Flynn was adapted by Conall Morrison for the Lyttelton Theatre, London (see review notice by C. L. Dallat, Times Literary Supplement, 28 Aug. 1998).
John McArdle’s play Out of That Childhood Country (1992), co-written with his brother Tommy McArdle and Eugene MacCabe, concerns is a play about Kavanagh’s youth.
Iniskeen is a place of romantic associations for two of the tourists in Brian Friel’s play The Gentle Island (1971). The village is the location of a Kavanagh commemorative museum.
Irate actor: Russell Crowe, who played the central part of the schizophrenic mathematician in the film A Beautiful Mind (2001), violently berating the director Malcolm Gerrie at the Bafta Awards for cutting of a four line poem by Patrick Kavanagh, as follows: ‘To be a poet and not know the trade/To be a lover and repel all women;/Twin ironies by which great saints are made,/The agonising pincer-jaws of Heaven.’ (Sadbh [column], The Irish Times, Weekend, 2 March 2002.)
Mary Robinson (President of Ireland) dedicated the Kavanagh Centre in Inniskeen in 1994, saying: ‘Let us remember him as he deserves to he remembered: not as an ornament to our literature - although he certainly is that - but as a poet who is still living among us, through his powerful and challenging poems and the force of his artistic conscience.’ (Stephen McKinley, ‘His Brother’s Keeper [...]’, in Irish Echo Newspaper, 18-24 Sept. 2002; see further under Peter Kavanagh, infra.)
Lost & found: Two poems by Kavanagh, and were found by Frank Shovlin: "Ungrateful Singer" (c.1938), among letters of Seamus O’Sullivan and Estella A. Solomons in TCD Library; "O Verse" (1950) among Envoy papers at the Morris Library at S. Illinois University. These are printed by permission of Trustees of Estate of late Katherine B. Kavanagh. (See Times Literary Supplement, 29 June 2001, p.8.)
A Centenary Celebration of life of Patrick Kavanagh organised by the trustees of the late Katherine B. Kavanagh, RTÉ Radio 1 and the Gate Theatre, Dublin, took place at the Gate on 17th Oct. 2004. The evening consisted of two parts: a reading of the “The Great Hunger” conducted by Macdara Woods, Leland Bardwell, Tom Mcintyre and Dermot Heal, and a reading of their favourite Kavanagh poems by Paul Durcan, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and John Montague, et al., each adding one poem of their own. Peter Browne provided uilleann pipe music. (Irish Times, 16 Oct. 2004, Weekend.)
The Green Fool by Patrick Kavanagh in a stage-adaptation by Declan Gorman played for one night only as part of the centenary celebrations at the Town Hall (Galway), on Monday 8 Nov. 2004.
Antoinette Quinn, editor of the centenary edition of his Collected Poems of Patrick Kavanagh (Oct. 2004) and author of Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, is quoted as saying: ‘Once again it cannot be distributed in the United States, because (his younger brother) Peter Kavanagh still claims copyright to 20 of the finest poems’. Her life of Kavanagh challenge[s] the view long advanced by the younger Kavanagh that his brother was rejected during his lifetime by Ireland’s literary establishment - indeed, she said, if her book has a hero aside from its subject, it’s Dublin’s middle class, who realized it had a ’wayward genius’ in its midst and supported him in every way it could.’ (Irish Echo, NY, 20-26 Oct. 2004; Diaspora list online.]
Hyland Catalogue, No. 220 (Jan. 1996) lists Kavanagh, contrib. [inter al.], David Wright and Patrick Smith, "X", Vol. 1 (1960/1) [ltd. 800]. CATL, Hibernia Books Cat. 19 lists ‘From Monaghan to the Grand Canal’, in Studies (1959), essay; Three Essays and Poems, in Nonplus, No. 1 (1969); also ‘A Letter and an Environment from Dubln’, essay, in Nimbus, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Summer 1956).
Cathach Books (1996/97) lists A Soul for Sale (London: Macmillan 1947), 55pp. [signed and inscribed copy dated Grand National Day 1946, £450.]
Publications to 1994: The Great Hunger (Dublin: Cuala Press 1942; facs. ed. Shannon: IUP 1972, 1993) [0 71651 39 6 X]; A Soul for Sale (London: Macmillan 1947); Collected Poems (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1964) [0 85616 1004; pb. 190 X]; Patrick Kavanagh, The Collected Poems, ed. Peter Kavanagh (Newbridge: Goldsmith 1972) [0 904984 79 6]; Lough Derg; A Poem [1942], ed. Peter Kavanagh (Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1978) [0 904984 47 8]; The Green Fool (Michael Joseph 1938; Martin Brian & O’Keeffe 1971; Harm: Penguin 1975, 1977, 1979) [0 85616 0008; 0 14 004005 6]; Tarry Flynn (London, Pilot Press 1948; New English Library 1962; MacGibbon & Kee 1965, 1972; Penguin 1978) [0 85616 086 6; 0 14 004553 8]; Self Portrait (Dolmen 1964, 1975), photos by Liam Miller [0 85185 275 4]; Collected Pruse (MacGibbon & Kee 1967); November Haggard (NY: Peter Kavanagh Hand Press 1972); By Night Unstarred, [novel] ed. Peter Kavanagh (Curragh;Goldsmith Press 1978) [0 904984 28 5]; Skinyou’s Beauty Parlour, comedy in one act (Abbey Publ. Co. 1950), 10pp.; kavanagh’s Weekly (Curragh: Goldsmith 1981) [0 904984 62 1]; Lough Derg (London: Martin Brian & O’Keeffe ?1971) [0 85616 161 6]
University of Ulster (Central Library) holds Autobiography of William Carleton, preface [foreword] by Patrick Kavanagh (MacGibbon & Kee 1968); The Green Fool (Michael Joseph 1938 [withdrawn] MB&O’K 1971; Penguin 1976); Lough Derg (Curragh: Goldsmith 1978); The Great Hunger (IUP 1971; orig. Cuala 1942), 1+35pp.; Almost Everything [disc] (Claddagh 1954), with sel. from Autobiography, prose and song, incl. ‘If Ever I Go to Dublin Town’, and poems; Garden of the Golden Apples, bibliography comp. and researched by Peter Kavanagh (NY: Peter Kavanagh Hand Press 1972), 47pp; Tom MacIntyre [after Patrick Kavanagh] Poem Into Play, essay and texts (Lilliput 1988), vii, 83pp.; Kavanagh’s Weekly, a journal of literature and politics, ed. Patrick Kavanagh and published by Peter Kavanagh, Dublin 1952 [facs. rep. of orig. series of 13] (Curragh: Goldsmith 1981); Tarry Flynn (London Pilot Press 1948); Tarry Flynn (London: Martin Brian & O’Keeffe 1972), 256pp.; Tarry Flynn (Penguin 1978), and Tarry Flynn (MacGibbon & Kee 1965; orig. ed. Pilot Press), 256pp.
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)