Geoff Rose – Patrick Kavanagh in Kilkenny

Patrick Kavanagh in Kilkenny

Geoff Rose

“This is a terrible place, Kilkenny is a terrible place, a terrible place entirely.”
Not exactly the most poetic words for Ye Faire City, indeed the Marble City has been better described, and much more eloquently than the Monaghan poet, farmer,
journalist, and novelist, Patrick Kavanagh, expressed himself on a visit on the 4th March 1958 to address The Kilkenny Arts Society in the city’s Technical School.
His unruly behaviour can hardly be excused unless as the old saying goes; “If you insult your audience, they will pay attention”
Kavanagh travelled to Kilkenny by train, first class, with a bottle of whiskey before him for company, on arrival in the Marble city, he immediately did a tour of the city.
He was accompanied by Stonyford man Leo Holohan, scholar, civil servant, and a faithful and devoted friend of 30 years to Patrick Kavanagh, who was described by
Kilkenny author Frank McEvoy as “a barrel-shaped man with fair hair, a suety complexion, and drops of porter on his fawn jersey.”
Kavanagh had wanted to stay in the Club House Hotel on Patrick Street, but was diverted to the Metropole Hotel, on James Street.
Later, on his arrival in the Technical School, Kavanagh talked loudly and incessantly, before walking out muttering loudly in the direction of the early arrivals who were
beginning to gather in the hall.
When he was introduced by the Chairman, Doctor Patrick Walsh, Kavanagh snorted and shifted uneasily in his chair, he then unrolled a ball of paper that was his lecture,
and put on a pair of glasses held together with Elastoplast. He peppered his talk with remarks, on W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Sean 0 Casey, and his own poetic rebirth on the banks of the Royal Canal, but kept muttering “Kilkenny’s is a terrible place, an awful place, this is terrible. Really, I never thought it would be so terrible”
It was at this point an imperious voice, dressed in fox furs, was raised from the audience, “I don’t know who showed you the town that you got such a bad impression of us”
she said “Don’t interrupt me” Kavanagh growled, “don’t you know that its bad manners to interrupt the lecturer”
It was the first time anyone told Elaine, Lady Bellew, to shut up! The audience greeted it with laughter.

Eventually, Kavanagh let the audience know, what was so terrible about Kilkenny. He had expected crowds of young people in the audience, but on being told that they were all attending a Novena in the Friary, he replied “It is terrible to think they are gone instead to those places of worship”
But, when he read four of his recently composed Canal Bank poems, written the previous Autumn, a hush fell over the audience, spellbound by the beauty of his new work, no wonder one could hear a pin drop in the Lecture Hall.
The true voice of poetry was recognisable, as it was then, and, in the decades to come.
Kavanagh was asked in conversation his opinion of various poets, and other lecturers, he dismissed each one with the same phrase, “No elfin’ good” After the lecture he returned to the Metropole Hotel, and immediately demanded a drink, and when a small Jameson whiskey was placed before him, he said “That is not a drink” he was quickly brought another, which was downed with a brisk gulp, and then quickly followed it with another.
Later on in the night, the question of his expenses came up and Kavanagh, downing another glass said “Ten pounds, and I’ll pay my own hotel bill. The fee originally had been for 3 guineas and reasonable expenses, but Kavanagh insisted that his cheque for the fee, for the evening, be doubled, and it was.
So, in the end a fee of 6 guineas was agreed and Patrick paid the hotel bill himself. The power of poetic persuasion!
His sister Mary, who was matron in Carlow Fever Hospital, during the 1940s, in exasperation, once said of her brother Patrick, that he could curse and pray in the one breath!
Patrick Kavanagh, the man from Mucker, may have been the-guestspeaker- from- hell, the cantankerous companion of the ever-faithful Leo Holohan, grossly insulting as a speaker and very demanding as a guest, but as a poet he was, and is, without equal, and his visit to Kilkenny 66 years ago left his Kilkenny audience in no doubt about that.
Local author and short story writer Frank Mc Evoy recorded in his diary, “Well, Kavanagh has come and gone; like the monsoon, the mistral, Hurricane Annie, things will never be quite the same again”

ENDS. Geoff Rose is a member of Lake Productions, Kilkenny and The Local
History Group @ Rothe House Kilkenny. (800 words) October 2024.