Patrick Kavanagh was born (1904) and raised in the townland of Mucker, Inniskeen. The oldest of ten children, he followed in his father's footsteps - a cobbler and small farmer. His formal education ended at the age of twelve, but he carried on with his own special interest in literature and writing poetry and sometimes had his poems published in the Dundalk Democrat and Weekly Independent.

He worked as a cobbler-farmer until his father died 1929. Soon after Kavanagh left the parish of Inniskeen and moved to Dublin in the hope of developing his writing career. His home community doubted his ability to write and he was branded an outcast.

The move to Dublin in 1930 was not much of an improvement, as competition among new writers was high. However, with the help of the editor of the Irish Statesman, George Russell, Kavanagh's career blossomed. In 1937, Kavanagh moved to London in search of literary work. There he wrote and published the autobiographical 'The Green Fool' in 1938.

Kavanagh returned to Dublin in August 1939 where he worked as a journalist. In the early forties his poems began to attract attention. In 1942, 'The Great Hunger' appeared in 'Horizon', a literary magazine - the Gardai seized all copies, on the order of the Minister of Justice, as the poem was alleged to be obscene. It now seen as the highest point in Kavanagh's artistic development! The novel 'Tarry Flynn' was published in 1948.

Patrick Kavanagh became seriously ill in 1967 and died of pneumonia in Dublin on the 30th November 1967. He is buried in Inniskeen.

The Patrick Kavanagh Rural and Literary Resource Centre celebrates the life and work of Patrick Kavanagh.

Selected Kavanagh Poems

(Click photo to link to poems)

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