This Working Life: ‘Patrick Kavanagh was spellbinding. He was radical. I had to get involved’

I was born in 1943 and had three older sisters and three younger sisters. I was reasonably quick at school, though my sisters were all very quick.

Three sisters joined the St Louis order in Carrickmacross, one left and became a teacher. My eldest sister was a nurse. My next three sisters became teachers and my younger sister was a social worker.

I was a bit young at 17 when I started my teacher training in St Pat’s in Drumcondra. I went back teaching at home in Kilcurry and in 1962 returned to Dublin and started in the Christian Brothers in Crumlin.

At night we did a BA in UCD as mature students. I studied English, philosophy and economics. I loved these subjects – but my love of Kavanagh did not come from them.

The thing is Kavanagh was always about. He had grown up six miles away in Inniskeen. My grandaunt Brigit had taught him. She was the Miss Moore in his semi-autobiography The Green Fool.

I was teaching in Crumlin for four years. I enjoyed it – though it was challenging teaching 40 boys in one class. They ranged in ability from the very bright to those who needed help.

My mother told me that if I had the opportunity to go to my Aunty Gaye in Terenure for my dinner. I used to get an hour-and-a-half lunch with the Christian Brothers and it was not too hard to get there from Crumlin.

We did not finish school until 4pm then. We used to get buns on a Friday, but back then not every child was well fed, it is good they have free school meals now.

?Settling in Carrickmacross

I knew I was not going to spend my life teaching in Dublin. I saw a position advertised in St Louis in Carrickmacross. My sister, mother and godmother had been at school there. I got the job and I stayed until I retired in 2005. I was principal for the last seven years.

I was part of the community from which the children came. Occasionally I could be dealing with pastoral care, dealing with parents – and by the time I became principal, I was familiar with many kinds of problems.

The vast majority of parents were supportive, the children generally had good parents.

It was very important to know the parents when the idea of special needs came in. In the past, parents were a wee bit reticent about speaking up for their kids.

I remember one child who came into the office this day around 2000, with tears in her eyes. But those tears were tears of joy.

“I am dyslexic,” she told me, “I knew I was not thick.”

I enjoyed my work – but I won’t say I enjoyed every single day as Helen, my late wife, will confirm.

I would come home and I would be exhausted. I’d sit in the armchair and not get out of it until bedtime. At those times you would have hoped you could solve a problem but you could not.

The things you need are energy and patience. And a comradeship with the teaching staff, and to give people space.

We had a tea-break at 10.50 – and as principal you learn not to arrive into the staff room on time. You’d give people six or seven minutes before you land in to get a cup of tea, so they could suppress their annoyances with the system.

We had a strong public speaking and debating tradition in the school. We took part in debating competitions in Dublin run by university students and we got to several finals.

There was one time in the Eighties when we were playing the Donegal team in basketball and we had to cross the Border. Things were a bit grim at the time. Anyway, we were stopped and were waiting for clearance.

There was a female soldier and she called out that she wanted our bus searched. Who came on the bus but two young soldiers. So our head girl jokes: “You can search me.”

The soldiers went scarlet, with all the girls beaming at them – and they left. We went on and we won that game. Our next game was in Cork, and then we won the All-Ireland.

?All quiet on the home front

Helen stayed at home with our four children. With my father and mother both teaching, I thought my mother had to work too hard when I was growing up. So we survived on one salary. We did ok.

I taught two of our daughters Neasa and Rosita, and they didn’t mind. Rosita was the first student in Ireland to get eight A1s in her Leaving – though she’ll kill me for bringing that up.

I retired in 2005 and that meant we had time to go travelling. We went to America, twice, and all over the EU.

Helen died two years ago, there is much grieving – and you have to go along with it, you have to put up with it. You have to get on with things – and having four children and 10 grandchildren is a great diversion for me.

I have many photographs of Helen around the house and I include her in all my conversations.

We met in the Pavilion Ballroom in Blackrock, near Dundalk, on an August Bank Holiday. It turned out she grew up five miles away from me – and at the time she lived 200 yards away from my bedsit in Dublin, and so that was that.

The pull of Patrick Kavanagh

Apart from my interest in soccer, I had a grá for poetry. I had been to a lecture Patrick Kavanagh gave in Earlsfort Terrace.

He was spellbinding. He was radical. I felt it was important to get involved.

In 1967, the year he died, I was teaching and doing the degree at night – but two years before that, we had called into O’Dwyers pub one night. He was there with John Jordan, James Liddy, Macdara Woods and I heard him say “the top of Parnassus is flat”. Much later I was out in Greece with Helen – and it was indeed flat.

I did not go talking to him that night. He was in own company. I went to his wake on Haddington Road, but I was teaching and could not go to his funeral.

I got involved with the Patrick Kavanagh Centre because my grandaunt taught him and because my mother was in the training college with his sister Celia.

My sister Una has written extensively on Kavanagh. In 1998 she wrote The Mystical Imagination of Patrick Kavanagh.

I’ve been active since 1980 in organising Kavanagh’s yearly weekend in late September to mark his birthday. We used to hold it in November, but the weather in Carrickmacross and Inniskeen was too poor.

We held it last Sunday and there were around 70 at the graveside. People came from all over Ireland.

We had a poetry workshop, the Patrick Kavanagh award and a book launch, and a panel discussion on the inevitability of art.

Then after that we had a film screening of Three Irish Writers – about Kavanagh, Brendan Behan and Myles na gCopaleen. In a way it was awful to watch, they all died young enough.

After that we went out to the Brew House for a story telling session and a nice beer.

The Kavanagh Centre opened in 1994 in what would have been St Mary’s Church, and the cemetery is where Kavanagh’s remains rest. Monaghan County Council invested nearly €1m in refurbishing the centre – and it’s world class.

The annual poetry competition has been going since the Patrick Kavanagh Society was set up in 1971. The lady who won this year was Róisín Leggett Bohan from Cork. She was good. Her poetry is like Emily Dickinson with a nip to it.

My life in football

When I retired, I became kitman for the under 18’s Irish soccer international team. I was in 12 European countries and Turkey. I did that until 2009.

I’ve been involved with Carrick Rovers since 1968, I am on the committee and would watch the matches and that.

Jack Charlton and Brian Kerr brought their Irish squads to Carrickmacross and they trained on our grounds, and Ronnie Moran also brought the Liverpool squad.

?Raisins lift the porridge

I have to get out of the bed before 9am. I make porridge the night before with raisins. I add honey and a banana. I walk to the shop for the paper. I’ll have tea and toast at 11.

I would go walking most days. It would depend if I had anything to do.

I might call out to the Kavanagh Centre if it is busy. We have schools coming all the time when Kavanagh is on the Leaving. I used to love doing the tours, but retired from tour guiding last year. I’m also chair of the Inniskeen Development Group, though again I’m planning on retiring next month.

I can get around no problem at 82. There are a few who are not as fortunate and they need visiting. You know you have to do it and you do it – and you enjoy it. I’m not spouting any wings.

My mother was a great believer in putting people at ease by talking away with them. And I think I have a doctorate in trivia.

When I got the teaching job in Carrickmacross, in the late Sixties, towns were encouraging people to come and live there. There were 45 serviced sites, so we applied for a bungalow and got it. And I am still there today.

?Life is a social thing

I can cook. I’ve always cooked.

I make my lunch at home. I generally go to the butcher on a Saturday. In the winter I buy half a pound of stewing meat, a sideline chop and a pork chop and lamb liver to keep me going until Thursday, then in the fish shop I buy hake, smoked cod and mackerel to take me to Friday.

Generally speaking I would go to McNallys on a Friday night and meet friends. A year and a half ago we started a ciorcal comhrá – and Irish conversation group – on Wednesday evenings in the library. There are usually between 10 to 12 of us.

Tomorrow I’m getting the bus to Dublin to go to a past-pupils reunion of those boys who left in 1973. They invited me. They started in 1968 and so did I.

I was happy to be invited. Many have been so supportive since Helen died.

I would read a good deal at night. At the moment it’s a book on the Roman empire and Frank McNally’s Not Making Hay. He is a good armchair writer, I’m full of chuckles.

I would say Spraying the Potatoes is my favourite Kavanagh poem. There is a lyrical earthiness about it.

I am often asked about line: “The axle-roll of a rut-locked cart/Broke the burnt stick of noon in two.”

It was never fully explained by him – but I think it was just the hint of going home for the dinner. Noon in Ireland was twenty-five past one.