250 years before the pandemic, the man who will forever be associated with daffodils was born in the Lake District in England. William Wordsworth (for it is he) was the second of five children and his early life was the stuff of a streaming mini-series: separated from his beloved sister at 8, orphaned at 13, child out of wedlock at 22. From then on, though, he seems to have mostly spent his non-writing time walking. In fact, for a man born 250 years ago, Wordsworth did a remarkable amount of travelling, including visiting France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and even Co Kerry (where he climbed Carrauntoohil). His devotion to spending time outdoors, critic and teacher Niall McMonagle told Seán O'Rourke on the poet's birthday, can be attributed to his love of nature.

"It's no exaggeration to say Mother Nature replaced his parents in terms of a nurturing, moral and guiding presence."

Wordsworth was, it's no surprise to learn, a voracious reader, spending his teens reading Shakespeare, Cervantes, Fielding, history, biography and – naturally – poetry.

"As a 17 year old schoolboy, he saw a poem of his in print for the first time."

After he graduated from Cambridge, Wordsworth travelled to France where he met Annette Vallon, with whom he had a daughter, Caroline. He left France before the child was born and only met her for the first time when she was 9 and he was about to marry Mary Hutchinson.

For Niall McMonagle's money, Tintern Abbey is Wordsworth's finest poem. And, Niall told Seán, the great poem seems to have been one that was composed easily, as Wordsworth said of it:

"No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more pleasant to me to remember than this."

The poet – then 28 – started composing it as he was leaving Tintern and finished it as he entered Bristol – a journey of 22 miles. Wordsworth said he didn't have to change anything about the poem when he went to write it down.

"Everything you need to know about Wordsworth is in Tintern Abbey. It's 159 lines long, it's like a beautifully-structured symphony. It celebrates nature, man's creative mind and our relationship with nature."

And, Seán asked, Wordsworth's legacy?

"His poems celebrate and honour ordinary people and what he calls the 'goings on of earth and sky'. The language he used was different, less ornate from previous poets. He said he wanted to write in the language of ordinary men and women."

But back to the daffodils and the intriguing revelation that Wordsworth's most famous poem – I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud – was more collaboration than solo effort: Dorothy chronicled the encounter with the daffodils in her journal and her brother used her journal entry to inspire his poem. And Mary, according to her husband, contributed two of the poem's most famous lines, according to Niall:

"He also told a friend that the best two lines in the poem, 'They flash upon that inward eye/Which is the bliss of solitude,' were written by Mary Hutchinson, so in a way, there were three people in that poetic relationship: Dorothy, William and Mary."

To hear Niall and Seán's full conversation, including Niall reciting Wordsworth's Composed upon Westminster Bridge, just go here.

Niall Ó Sioradáin