Patrick Kavanagh, a Biography
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25.SK, 244.
26.This poem and the two sonnets below in Victoria.
27.SK, 112.
28.Hogan and O’Neill, op. cit. 75.
29.O’Connor to O’Faoláin, 31 January 1944, MML.
30.Hogan and O’Neill, op. cit. 52, 75.
Chapter 11
Based in part on a conversation with Benedict Kiely.
1.Unpublished article from July 1940, KA; quoted in SK, 86–7.
2.In MML.
3.Kavanagh detested the use of the word ‘Emergency’ for the period 1939–1945 in Ireland because of its insularity.
4.‘Beyond the Headlines’.
5.S, 3 August 1945.
6.S, 30 August 1946.
7.Martin, Brian and O’Keeffe, London, and The Goldsmith Press, The Curragh, Ireland.
Chapter 12
Based in part on conversations with Nancy Hurley (cousin of Nola O’Driscoll) and Benedict Kiely.
1.IP, 4 September 1942 (first column).
2.J. J. Lee, Ireland 1912–1985, 218.
3.Philip Larkin (ed.), The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse, Oxford 1973, Introduction.
4.23 September 1943.
5.26 February to 11 June 1943.
6.S, 12 March 1943.
7.S, 30 April 43.
8.S, 28 May 1943.
9.Tim Buckley, a seanchaí, and his wife, Ansty, immortalised by Eric Cross in The Tailor and Ansty (1942), which was banned in Ireland. The pair, who were persecuted by local people as a result, were championed and much visited by intellectuals.
10.All information on Nola O’Driscoll based on my interview with her cousin, Nancy Hurley.
11.PK to Betjeman, 11 January 1944, Victoria.
12.ibid.
13.Hogan and O’Neill (eds), Joseph Holloway’s Irish Theatre, 96.
14.PK to Betjeman, 16 March 1944, Victoria.
15.Candida Lycett Green (ed.), John Betjeman Letters, Vol. I, 330.
16.‘How Much Does a Family of Five Need to Live On’, S, 13 December 1946.
17.Books Ireland, April 1986, and Even Without Irene, 166.
18.PK to McQuaid, 30 November 1944, MCQA.
19.McQuaid’s modus operandi was described to me by the MCQA archivist, David Sheehy.
20.Rumour had it that Frank Geary sent marked passages of GH to McQuaid. Ben Kiely says that this would have been entirely out of character.
21.PK to McQuaid, 30 November 1944, MCQA.
22.IP, 27 October 1943.
23.George Yeats to Frank O’Connor, MML.
24.PK to Betjeman, 11 January 1944, Victoria.
25.PK to Betjeman, 3 November 1944, Victoria.
26.Novel rejected 18 October; requests it be sent to Methuen, 23 October, Macmillan Archive, BL.
27.PK told both McQuaid (30 November1944) and Betjeman twice (4 December 1944 and undated, Victoria) about the letter from Eliot.
28.PK to Betjeman, undated, Victoria.
29.PK to Betjeman, 3 November 1944, Victoria.
30.S, 20 December 1946 and SP.
31.IP, 16 April 1943.
32.Candida Lycett Green, op. cit. 272.
33.IP, 7 July 1945.
34.PK to McQuaid, 30 November 1944, MCQA.
Chapter 13
Based in part on conversations with the late Thérèse Cronin, Benedict Kiely, Deirdre Manifold (née Courtney), Dr Dorothy O’Neill (née Moriarty, Hilda’s sister).
1.PK to McQuaid, 30 November 1944, MCQA.
2.Letter to me from Nuala Sheehan’s daughter, the novelist Aisling Foster, 20 February 1998.
3.Macmillan Archive, BL.
4.PK to Betjeman, Victoria.
5.Macmillan Archive, BL.
6.ibid.
7.Lovat Dickson, The House of Words, 279–82; Alistair Horne, Macmillan 1894–1956, 290.
8.Largely based on the description of post-war Dublin in Ulick O’Connor, Brendan Behan, London 1979, 86–9.
9.Ulick O’Connor, Oliver St. John Gogarty, 298.
10.In April 1963 in connection with the organisation of a tribute to O’Curry, KA; quoted in SK, 134.
11.Macmillan Archive, BL.
12.E, May 1951.
13.BA, 83.
14.Anthony Cronin, No Laughing Matter, London 1989, 205.
15.The first three sonnets in the sequence in IT on 1 September 1945 as ‘The Monaghan Accent’; the last two in IT, 29 June 1946.
16.Letter from Land Commission in KA.
17.SK, 126.
18.William Rose Benet, poetry editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, Peter K to PK, 14 August 1947, KA; LF, 118.
19.PK to Peter K, 29 December 1946, KA; LF, 90.
20.Des Geraghty, Luke Kelly, A Memoir, 39, has a slightly different version of this episode.
21.S, 28 March 1947.
22.Letter to me from Patrick Waldron; also Nichevo’s column, IT, 31 August 1946.
Chapter 14
Based in part on conversations with Patricia Collins (formerly Mrs John Ryan), the late Dr Patrick Henchy and Benedict Kiely.
1.‘Gallowglass’ in Irish Catholic, December 1967.
2.John Ryan, Remembering How We Stood, 92.
3.PK to Peter K, 12 July 1949, KA; LF, 142.
Chapter 15
Based in part on conversations with Sheila Bradshaw, Marie Louise Colbert, Patricia Collins (formerly Mrs John Ryan), Anthony Cronin, the late Thérèse Cronin, Desmond MacNamara, Priscilla MacNamara and Joan Ryan.
1.PK to Peter K, 26 February 1947, KA; LF, 98.
2.In letters to Macmillan, Macmillan Archive, BL; PK to Peter K, 6 May 1947, KA; LF, 104.
3.PK to Betjeman, 28 December 1946, Victoria.
4.PK to John Gawsworth, 21 September 1947, HRHRC. While Gawsworth was serving in the war, they lost contact.
5.TF, the Pilot Press, London 1948, 69.
6.PK to Peter K, 18 July 1947, KA; LF, 109.
7.Peter Hegarty, Peadar O’Donnell, 262.
8.Information on the Pilot Press in this and the next chapter, courtesy of Priscilla MacNamara who worked as an editor there in 1947–9.
9.Copy of contract in Macmillan Archive, BL.
10.A folksy ballad about a Thomas Moore Society dinner PK had attended.
11.Hegarty, op. cit. 263.
12.MGC.
13.‘The Gambler’, Script for Radio Éireann, 23 September 1953, KA.
14.PK to Peter K, 1 November 1948, KA; LF, 133.
15.All Macmillan correspondence in this chapter is from the Macmillan Archive, BL.
16.PK to Peter K, 11 October 1947, KA; LF, 122.
17.PK said this to Patricia Collins.
18.Hegarty, op. cit. 264.
19.The poetic ‘kink’ is associated with rectitude in MGC.
20.James Matthews, Voices, A Life of Frank O’Connor, 238.
21.Greacen and Iremonger repeatedly asked to be allowed to include some poems; PK always refused and gave no ‘adequate reasons’. Letter to me from Robert Greacen, 17 October 1993.
22.PK to Peter K, 1 and 17 November 1948, KA; LF, 133–5.
23.PK to Peter K, 17 November 1948, KA; LF, 134–5.
24.R. Ó Faracháin, letter to IT, 24 May 1977.
25.ibid.
26.Because the Pilot Press archive is unavailable (see next chapter) we have no sales figures, but PK reported that it was selling well prior to publication (PK to Peter K, 6 October 1948, KA). The Pilot Press has been undeservedly badmouthed by PK. It was a young but reputable company and it paid him the full amount of his advance (Pilot to PK, 19 April 1948, KA). Had it not paid him his British royalties, he would have complained vociferously, which he didn’t. Contrary to his much-cited comment in the Poetry Book Society Bulletin (Summer 1960) that the Pilot Press ‘went broke immediately’, this did not happen for a year after the publication of TF, by which time the first print run would probably have been sold. However, the bankruptcy meant that there was no reprinting.
27.PK to Peter K, 19 January 1949, KA; LF, 136.
29.PK to Peter K, 1 November 1948, KA; LF, 133; 10 September 1947, KA; LF, 119.
30.SP.
Chapter 16
Based in part on conversations with Sheila Bradshaw, Anthony Cronin, the late Thérèse Cronin, the late Dr Patrick Henchy, Con Howard, Benedict Kiely, John McGahern, T. P. McKenna, Priscilla MacNamara, Deirdre Manifold (née Courtney), Anne Sheils (Leo Holohan’s niece) and Macdara Woods.
1.Anthony Cronin in PS . . . of course, 119.
2.Claire McAllister to Directors of NL, 14 November 1988, NL.
3.PK to C. McAllister, 1 May 1948, NL.
4.PK to Peter K, 6 October 1948, KA and LF, 133.
5.Untitled typescript of The Good Son in KA. All Kavanagh/Macmillan correspondence in this chapter from Macmillan Archive, BL.
6.PK to Peter K, 3 October 1947; Peter K to PK, 7 October 1947, KA and LF, 121.
7.PK to Peter K, 12 December 1947; 27 February 1949, KA and LF, 128, 138.
8.Donal Foley, Three Villages, 76.
9.PK to Peter K, 8 November 1949, KA and LF, 148.
10.These typed drafts are in KA.
11.Based on reports in the Dundalk Democrat, 1930–36.
12.Patrick J. Sammon, In The Land Commission, A Memoir, 183, 246. Sammon was the Land Commission’s clerk-in-charge in the Counties of Monaghan and Louth from 1935 to 1941.
13.PK to Celia K, 30 January 1936, KA; LF, 37.
14.Livingstone, The Monaghan Story, 338.
15.PK to Peter K, 6 May and 12 December 1947, KA; LF, 104, 127.
16.PK to Peter K, 14 May 1949, KA; LF, 139.
17.PK to Peter K, 30 May 1949, KA; LF, 140.
18.John McGahern, Review of Patrick Kavanagh: Man and Poet, Peter Kavanagh (ed.), Evening Herald, July 1987.
19.Richard Lattimore, Rambling Around Baggot Street, Dublin 1993, 53.
20.J. P. Donleavy, Ireland In All Her Sins And in Some of Her Graces, London 1986, 102.
21.Based on Caroline Walsh, ‘Parsons of Baggot Street Bridge’, IT, 2 March 1982; Gerard Quinn, ‘Paddy Kavanagh’s Office’, Martello, Spring 1984.
22.PK to Peter K, 19 January 1949, KA; LF, 136.
23.PK to Peter K, 30 May 1949, KA; LF, 141.
24.SK, 239.
25.Bríd Mahon, While Green Grass Grows, Cork 1998, 173–8.
26.Based on Patrick Henchy, The National Library of Ireland, 1941–1976, Dublin 1986, 15, and on a conversation with Dr Henchy.
27.IFJ, 9 August 1958.
28.IFJ, 13 June 1959.
29.‘The Gambler’, script for Radio Éireann, 23 September 1953, KA.
30.IFJ, 9 August 1958.
31.Leo Holohan, IT, 1 December 1967.
32.Account of Leo Holohan largely based on Donal Foley, Obituary, IT, 22 June 1979; Con Houlihan, ‘Leo Holohan, Sportsman and Scholar’, Evening Press, 22 June 1979; Michael Mulvihill, ‘Leo Holohan — A Man for All Seasons’, the Kilkenny People, 10 October 1986.
33.Kav/B/80 in KA; PK to Peter K, 30 May 1949, KA; LF, 140.
34.Kav B/21 in KA. This untitled typescript is not divided into chapters and Margaret does not desert the hero for another man at the end. There is some attempt at fictional disguise: the Bishop is ‘The Bishop of . . . ’; The Irish Times is The Irish Smile; the writer the hero consults at the beginning is not given a Killiney address, so is not too closely identified with Seán O’Faoláin. However, Niall Montgomery is named as one of the Pearl set and savaged. In a few pages of a draft version bound in with the novel, MacOdge is named Robert O’Driscoll.
35.Deirdre Manifold (née Courtney) to PK, 21 December 1954, in KA.
36.John Ryan, Remembering How We Stood, 99–100.
37.PK to Peter K, 10 October 1950, KA; LF, 156.
38.KW, 14 June 1952 under the pen-name N. Caffrey.
Chapter 17
Based in part on conversations with Patricia Collins (formerly Mrs John Ryan), Anthony Cronin, Deirdre Kelly, Benedict Kiely, Hugh McFadden, John McGahern, Jim McGuinness, Tony McInerney, Desmond MacNamara, John Montague, Joan Ryan, and on Peter McKenzie’s recording of interviews with Peggy Rushton (née Gough).
1.John Ryan, Remembering How We Stood, 91.
2.Hubert Butler, ‘Envoy and Mr Kavanagh’, The Bell, September 1951.
3.Anthony Cronin, No Laughing Matter, 171–2.
4.Donleavy, Ireland In All Her Sins And in Some of Her Graces, 105–7.
5.ibid.
6.Dublin city pubs were obliged to close at 10 p.m., but pubs outside the Dublin Metropolitan Court Area were permitted to serve alcohol up to midnight to bona fide travellers, legally defined as persons who were at a minimum of five miles from the place they had slept the previous night. A ring of pubs known as bona fide pubs developed on the outskirts of the city to cater for this clientele.
7.Anthony Cronin, Dead as Doornails, Dublin 1976, 79.
8.John McGahern, ‘The Bird Swift’ in PS . . . Patrick Swift, 149.
9.JJP, Ms. 35, 118, NL.
10.John Montague, ‘Patrick Kavanagh: A Speech from the Dock’, The Figure in the Cave, 1989, 141.
11.John Jordan, ‘Joyce without Fears: A Personal Journey’ in John Ryan and Myles na Gopaleen (eds), A Bash in the Tunnel.
12.Michael Hartnett, ‘The Dublin Literary World’, IT, 13 November 1968.
13.John Montague, op. cit. 138.
14.Ulick O’Connor, Brendan Behan, London 1970, 162.
15.Anthony Cronin, Dead as Doornails, 66.
16.‘The Jungle’, IT, 25 August 1948.
17.From Peter McKenzie’s recording of interviews with Peggy Rushton (née Gough).
18.Margaret Gardiner, A Scattering of Memories, 126–7.
19.Donal Foley, Three Villages, 80–81.
20.IT, 3 December 1977.
21.PK to Peter K, 15 October 1950, KA; LF, 157.
22.PK to Peter K, 5 August 1951, KA; LF, 164.
23.John Ryan, op. cit. 105.
24.PK to Peter K, 29 March 1951, KA; LF, 163.
25.PK to Peter K, 5 August 1951, KA; LF, 164.
26.PK to Peter K, 1 October 1951, KA; LF, 167.
Chapter 18
Based in part on conversations with Sheila Bradshaw, Patricia Collins (formerly Mrs John Ryan), Anthony Cronin, Dede Farrelly, Brendan Kennelly, Niall Lawlor, Dr Sheila Lawlor, Hugh McFadden, John McGahern, Andrew O’Connor, John O’Grady, Joan Ryan and Elinor Wiltshire.
1.Discussion of Kavanagh’s Weekly based on SK, 247–54; BA, 131–38; Peter K, ‘My Wild Irish Weekly’, American Mercury, 75, No. 345, September 1952; and the record, Almost Everything, Claddagh Records, Dublin 1965.
2.Evening Mail, 10 April 1952.
3.Anthony Cronin, Dead as Doornails, 79–80.
4.Information courtesy of Dr Sheila Lawlor.
5.SK, 327.
6.John Jordan, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, Hibernia, 30 November 1973.
7.Woods had written a very unflattering review of Peter Kavanagh’s The Story of the Irish Theatre in IT the previous year: PK to Peter K, 12 May 1951, KA; LF, 163–4. Hugh McFadden recalls that in 1966 PK was still capable of flying into a rage over Williams’ role inthe ‘Profile’.
8.John Jordan, loc. cit.
9.John Montague, The Figure in the Cave, Dublin 1989, 138.
10.John Ryan, Remembering How We Stood, 112.
11.John Arden, ‘Literary Emperor’ in Peter Kavanagh (ed.), Patrick Kavanagh, Man and Poet, 1987, 283.
12.Based on Bill Naughton, Voices from a Journal, Dublin 2000, 129–36. In On the Pig’s Back, Oxford 1987, 35, Naughton wrote of his journal: ‘Incidents and conversations written with Boswellian fidelity make the most interesting and lasting journal material.’
13.Angela Crooms to PK, 20 January 1953, KA.
14.Information on Sheila O’Grady’s career and her parody of ‘On Raglan Road’, courtesy of her nephew and executor John O’Grady. His paper ‘Patrick Kavanagh and My Aunt’ was presented at the Patrick Kavanagh Weekend in Inniskeen on 29 No
vember 1998.
15.An untitled poem, Kav/B/6 in KA, which recalls PK’s first meeting with George Barker in the Duke of Wellington (misdated 1954) uses this phrase. Mrs Farrelly confirms that Barker looked down on Kavanagh.
16.All references to Padraic O’Halpin based on excerpts from his diary (1923–1978), given to me by his son, Eunan O’Halpin.
17.‘A Goat Tethered outside the Bailey’, 2 February 1953 and in The Bell, September 1953; ‘This is no Book’, 17 September 1953; ‘The Gambler’ 23 September 1953; ‘Return in Harvest’, October 1953 and in The Bell, April 1954; ‘My Country Christmas’, 24 December 1953.
Chapter 19
Based in part on conversations with Sheila Bradshaw, Dr Anthony Carroll, Anthony Cronin, Dr Sheila Lawlor (Jim O’Toole’s sister), Deirdre Manifold, John McGahern, T. P. McKenna, Val Mulkerns, Andrew O’Connor, Joan and Eoin Ryan, the late Leo Swan and Jimmy Swift.
1.Anthony Cronin, Dead as Doornails, 105–6.
2.Ulick O’Connor, Brendan Behan, 164; Michael O’Sullivan, Brendan Behan, A Life, 172.
3.John Ryan, Remembering How We Stood, 113.
4.Máirín O’Farrell, ‘A Dublin Literary Pub’, Martello, Autumn 1997.
5.Finbarr Slattery, Following the Horses, 125–6.
6.The Bloomsday jaunt is described by Cronin, op. cit. 123–7 and by Ryan, op. cit. 138–41.
7.Rings are aimed at a wall-mounted board with numbered pegs. Bets are often taken on a player’s likely score, calculated by adding the numbers on the pegs ringed. It is still played in some pubs, e.g. the Gravediggers’ Pub in Glasnevin.
8.Christine Dwyer Hickey, ‘Sunshine and Greystones’, IT, 22 July 1997.
9.‘Memories of a Spray Paint Canvasser’, IFJ, 21 June 1958.
10.Cronin, No Laughing Matter, 196.
11.Cronin, Dead as Doornails, 127–8.
Chapter 20
Based in part on conversations with Sheila Bradshaw, Anthony Cronin, Andrew O’Connor, Rev. John Quinn, PP, Eoin and Joan Ryan, Jimmy Swift and Elinor Wiltshire.
1.This account of PK’s illness is partly based on SK, 277–86; ‘My Time in Hospital’, Pulse, No. 18, 6 October 1962; IFJ, 18 October 1958; and on correspondence in KA.
2.‘The Hospital’ was later revised, e.g. in Nimbus, line 5 read ‘From opening windows on a creative show’ and line 14, ‘Experience so light-hearted appears transitory’.
3.PK to Peter K, 25 April, 1955, KA: As you will know I wanted to be in a position to get a kick in the arse at John Ryan when he called as he did today. He would whittle one down to a few pounds and make one miserable into the bargain. I know now that I have given myself a chance to get something out of him eventually. I felt that in spite of any effort he was — as he was—going to get off for a week at this hotel, and I was desperate for the excuse . . .