35 Facts About Patrick Kavanagh

Patrick Kavanagh is known for his accounts of Irish life through reference to the everyday and commonplace.

Patrick Kavanagh was born in rural Inniskeen, County Monaghan, in 1904, the fourth of ten children of James Kavanagh and Bridget Quinn.

Patrick Kavanagh's grandfather was a schoolteacher called "Kevany", which a local priest changed to "Kavanagh" at his baptism.

Patrick Kavanagh was a pupil at Kednaminsha National School from 1909 to 1916, leaving in sixth class at the age of 13.

Patrick Kavanagh became apprenticed to his father as a shoemaker and worked on his farm.

Patrick Kavanagh was goalkeeper for the Inniskeen Gaelic football team.

Patrick Kavanagh's first published work appeared in 1928 in the Dundalk Democrat and the Irish Independent.

Patrick Kavanagh had encountered a copy of the Irish Statesman, edited by George William Russell, who published under the pen name AE and was a leader of the Irish Literary Revival.

Mr Patrick Kavanagh's lyrics are for the most part slight and conventional, easily enjoyed but almost as easily forgotten.

The Green Fool, a loosely autobiographical novel, was published in 1938 and Patrick Kavanagh was accused of libel.

However, it was claimed to be somewhat 'anti-Catholic' in tone, to which Patrick Kavanagh reacted by demanding that the work be prominently displayed in Dublin bookshop windows.

Patrick Kavanagh soon saw through the literary masks many Dublin writers wore to affect an air of artistic sophistication.

Patrick Kavanagh worked as a part-time journalist, writing a gossip column in the Irish Press under the pseudonym Piers Plowman from 1942 to 1944 and acted as film critic for the same publication from 1945 to 1949.

In late 1946 Patrick Kavanagh moved to Belfast, where he worked as a journalist and as a barman in a number of public houses in the Falls Road area.

Patrick Kavanagh's personality became progressively quixotic as his drinking increased over the years and his health deteriorated.

In 1949 Patrick Kavanagh began to write a monthly "Diary" for Envoy, a literary publication founded by John Ryan, who became a lifelong friend and benefactor.

Envoys offices were at 39 Grafton Street, but most of the journal's business was conducted in a nearby pub, McDaid's, which Patrick Kavanagh subsequently adopted as his local.

Patrick Kavanagh often referred to these times as the period of his "poetic rebirth".

In 1952 Patrick Kavanagh published his own journal, Patrick Kavanagh's Weekly: A Journal of Literature and Politics, in conjunction with, and financed by, his brother Peter.

Patrick Kavanagh had made numerous enemies in his film and literary criticism and, as he had written diatribes against the Civil Service, the Arts Council and the Irish Language movement, there were many possible authors of the piece.

Second, shortly after Patrick Kavanagh lost this case, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was admitted to hospital, where he had a lung removed.

Patrick Kavanagh began to appreciate nature and his surroundings, and took his inspiration from them for many of his later poems.

Costello and Patrick Kavanagh eventually became good friends, with Patrick Kavanagh remarking that he voted for him after the trial.

In 1955 Macmillan rejected a typescript of poems by Patrick Kavanagh, which left the poet very depressed.

Patrick Swift, on a visit to Dublin in 1956, was invited by Kavanagh to look at the typescript.

Between 1959 and 1962 Patrick Kavanagh spent more time in London, where he contributed to Swift's X magazine.

Patrick Kavanagh gave lectures at University College Dublin and in the United States, represented Ireland at literary symposiums, and became a judge of the Guinness Poetry Awards.

Patrick Kavanagh married his long-term companion Katherine Barry Moloney in April 1967 and they set up home together on Waterloo Road in Dublin.

Patrick Kavanagh fell ill at the first performance of Tarry Flynn by the Abbey Theatre company in Dundalk Town Hall and died a few days later, on 30 November 1967, in Dublin.

Patrick Kavanagh's grave is in Inniskeen adjoining the Patrick Kavanagh Centre.

Heaney and Patrick Kavanagh shared a belief in the capacity of the local, or parochial, to reveal the universal.

Patrick Kavanagh concludes that Kavanagh's poetry vindicates his "indomitable faith in himself and in the art that made him so much more than himself".

When he became aware that the Patrick Kavanagh quote had been cut from the final broadcast, Crowe became aggressive with the BBC producer responsible, Malcolm Gerrie.

Patrick Kavanagh said: "it was about a one minute fifty speech but they've cut a minute out of it".

Peter Patrick Kavanagh's papers include thesis, plays, autobiographical writing, printed material, personal and general correspondence memorabilia, tape recordings, galley proofs and family memorabilia.