Last Saturday, the President of the Patrick Kavanagh Society spoke to Marian Finucane in advance of the 50th anniversary of the poet's death. This morning, the day of that anniversary, the Chairperson of the Patrick Kavanagh Centre, Art Agnew, spoke to Brian Dobson on Morning Ireland. He began by talking about Kavanagh's enduring appeal:
"He seemed always to be able to make the extraordinary out of the ordinary."
Kavanagh, Art went on, left school when he was thirteen, having had an epiphany in fifth class: "I dabbled in verse and found it was my life". Contrary to what people might expect, Art gave us an image of Kavanagh as someone who liked to "make fun", citing his fourteen-line poem Epic, which features Homer and the Gods, as an example of the poet's gaiety.
Brian Dobson brought up the bleakness of the likes of Stony Grey Soil, which was on the school syllabus when he was a pupil. While the poem is local, Art tells him, it's also universal because so many young people feel angry and frustrated.
"In that poem, Kavanagh thrashes the room, he spits the dummy, he dirties the nest, he does all of those things and it's a wonderfully savage protest."
Art gives a fine reading of Kavanagh's Christmas Eve Remembered and there's some archive audio of the great Luke Kelly singing Raglan Road and talking about his one and only meeting with Patrick Kavanagh.
You can hear the full report at the link above, and the rest of Morning Ireland, here: