Patrick Kavanagh was born on a small farm in
Inniskeen, on the borders of Monaghan, Armagh and Louth on October 21,
1904. He died after years of
cancer and
alcoholism in a Dublin Nursing Home on November 30,
1967.
He came to Dublin to seek the literati there. They
made him feel like a country thick and it wasn't until
later when he realised that he could actually write poetry that he got over his inferiority complex.
His major works include The Green Fool and The Hunger.
Both satirised life in Ireland and in paticular
the sexual repression and devotion to the church.
My old english teacher told us that when he was in university himself and his collegues would go to the local pub and sit in the corner and watch Kavanagh from across the room. Kavanagh was a notorious drinker and a story that is widely spread about him goes as follows.
He met fellow writer Brendan Behan to meet for a drink,
they could not find a pub that neither of them had been
barred from.
My old english teacher told me another story. He was teaching some Kavanagh poetry to the class. A mother of one of the children came in and demanded that he stop teaching the "writings of that filthy man". It turns out that when she was youner she had lived in an apartment above Kavanaghs's. He would come home drunk, with prostitiues,
swearing. This woman didn't want her son to have anything to do with such an influence. My english teacher asked her if she had read any of his poetry. She said no. After she read some she changed her mind.