Poet and writer Monk Gibbon talks about his work and encounters with leading creative and literary figures.
William Monk Gibbon was born in Dublin in 1896, the son of a clergyman based in Taney parish, Dundrum. Educated at St Columba's College Rathfarnham, he attended Kelle College Oxford but left his studies to join the British Army during the First World War. Invalided in 1917 he worked as a teacher in the Channel Islands, Switzerland and Dorset before returning to Ireland.
A notable figure on the Irish literary scene for more than forty years, he has become known as 'The Grand Old Man of Irish Letters'. In addition to poetry and critical essays, he has published five volumes of poetry, three autobiographical works, an autobiographical novel, two works of literary criticism, three books on ballet and seven travel books. Awarded the silver medal for poetry at the Tailteann Games in 1928, he is also a Doctor of Philosophy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a member of the Irish Academy of Letters.
Interviewer Niall Sheridan notes that while Monk Gibbon’s autobiographical works can be described as egocentric and self-conscious, he has an extrovert side too. Monk Gibbon agrees with this wholeheartedly,
I love to escape out into life...life and human beings interest me enormously.
The people who interest him most are young people, because of their fresh outlook on the world, closely followed by celebrities in the world of ballet, many of which he knows personally - Margot Fonteyn, Moira Shearer and the internationally renowned dancer and choreographer Léonide Massine to name but a few.
On the literary side, he always admired and had great deal of time for George Moore, who he describes as being kind, excitable, and at times rude, but in contrast to the perception of him in Dublin literary circles at that time,
Fundamentally he was a gentleman.
His greatest hero is Æ(George Russell), for whom he wrote a poem which was published in the Dublin Magazine. Æ thought the poem would have been better suited for publication after his death, but Monk Gibbon wanted to praise him while he was still alive, as
His greatness impressed you here and now.
The poet William Butler Yeats was another literary giant who he crossed paths with regularly, but their meetings were not always harmonious, as their conversations inevitably ended in a clash of opinions. But as Æ pointed out to Gibbon at one time,
You are the only person in Ireland who argues with him, I think he ought to be grateful to you.
A prolific writer for the last forty years, which of his literary achievements is Monk Gibbon most pleased with?
Leaving the poetry to one side, he believes his autobiographical novel Mount Ida is probably his greatest literary work. At the end of his life he hopes to arrive in heaven in a similar fashion to that described by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
I’d have The Seals under one arm, Mount Ida under the other, and...a bunch of typescript poems in my mouth.
‘Writer In Profile: Monk Gibbon’ was broadcast on 19 January 1971. The presenter is Niall Sheridan.
‘Writer in Profile’ was a weekly television interview with a well-known Irish writer. First broadcast on 29 October 1968, it ran until 1976.
