Portrait of Patrick Kavanagh

In 'Self Portrait: Patrick Kavanagh', the poet made his debut on television. In this extract, Kavanagh tells the audience of his dislike of talking about himself and comments on the growth of interest among the media in "personal data".

"...I dislike talking about myself in a direct way: the self is only interesting as an illustration. For some strange reason, whenever we talk about our personal lives, it turns out to be both irrelevant and untrue. Even when the facts are right, the mood is wrong..."

Kavanagh's script for the documentary 'Self Portrait' was later published in print.