Eamon Keane describes meeting the great writer, for the first time, in Dublin in the 1940's... From the Sunday Miscellany archives, circa 1975, listen to Meeting Frank O'Connor above...
The first time I met Frank O'Connor was in Stephen's Green; the time, mid-morning in the late forties. He lay sprawled, one elbow supporting his angled frame on the dark green bench opposite the bust of James Clarence Mangan. An aureole of bright red berries softened the severity of the poet's stone visage.
I was 18 then, with more sap than sense. Anxious to impress the illustrious Corkman I began, "Mr O'Connor, look up there at the sky, wouldn't the clouds remind you of a bundle of 'oul sheep?"
He sat bolt upright, jerked his leonine head as if he hadn't heard me right, paused in momentary bemusement and focused the frost of his brilliant eyes upon me.
"Where are you from?". The words rolled out sonorously, with the resonance of a Paul Robeson...
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