The archive of writer Pearse Hutchinson is to be permanently hosted at the library of NUI Maynooth.
The archive will be launched today along with a collection of previously unpublished Hutchinson poems 'Listening to Bach' by Gallery Press.
Hutchinson was a multilingual poet and broadcaster. He wrote an Irish-language column, 'Tagairt', for the RTÉ Guide for over two decades. Born in Glasgow in 1927, Hutchinson moved to Ireland as a child. He later spent almost a decade living in Spain.
Hutchinson talks about the climate of persecution he grew up in. His mother was a religious fanatic and most of the Christian Brothers who taught him in Synge Street were puritans. Huthchinson felt he could write more freely abroad, but it was not a conscious literary gesture of his to leave. Cunning and mockery are the worst vices of the Irish, but he also feels threatened by a philistine establishment that distrusts poets.
This episode of 'Writer in Profile' was broadcast on 12 January 1971.
Pearse Hutchinson died in Dublin in 2012.
Pearse Hutchinson in 1976. The photographer was Eve Holmes. © RTÉ Archives 2032/078
