Kavanagh's wife, Katherine, Therese Cronin, Joan Ryan and Leland Bardwell talk about the poet's relationship with women.

"...He loved women, he absolutely adored women, he made you feel very important, even though you weren't beautiful or anything..." (Katherine Kavanagh)

"He was absolutely fascinated by everything about a girl..." (Joan Ryan)

Leland Bardwell comments that Kavanagh said that, "beautiful women were more intelligent than plain ones because intelligent men took so much notice of beautiful women that the intelligence rubbed off on him". She continues by saying of Kavanagh "...he was an awful chauvanist, I'm afraid".

'Gentle Tiger' marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of poet and novelist, Patrick Kavanagh. 'Gentle Tiger' is a documentary in which his widow Katherine, brother Peter, neighbours and friends put their memories of Patrick Kavanagh on record. Poets George Barker, Séamus Heaney and Paul Durcan, Professors Denis Donoghue and Brendan Kennelly are among the contributors.

The documentary includes photographs and documents from the Kavanagh Archive in UCD, archive material from Adrian Cronin's film of Patrick Kavanagh, and footage taken by John Ryan, on Bloomsday 1954.

'Gentle Tiger' was produced by Tom McCardle and was broadcast on 30 November 1987.

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