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CELEBRATED POET AND novelist Brendan Kennelly has died aged 85.
Born in Ballylongford in Co Kerry on 17 April 1936, Kennelly wrote over 20 books of poetry, along with plays, novels and criticism.
Some of his most famous works include Cromwell (1983/87), Poetry me Arse (1995) and more recently Reservoir Voices (2009).
He was also a Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College Dublin for 30 years until his retirement in 2005.
Paying tribute to Kennelly, President Michael D Higgins said:
“As a poet, Brendan Kennelly had forged a special place in the affections of the Irish people. He brought so much resonance, insight, and the revelation of the joy of intimacy to the performance of his poems and to gatherings in so many parts of Ireland. He did so with a special charm, wit, energy and passion.
“Delivered from the flux of transacted life, ordinary words of the everyday had their beauty revealed for audiences and, in their recovery, the public shared life being celebrated.
“Brendan’s poetry is infused with the details and texture of life, its contradictions and moments of celebration including the wry experiences of football and politics.
With more than 30 collections, he leaves a major body of work, a legacy of teaching as Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College Dublin, and the gratitude of so many younger poets whom he encouraged with honest and helpful critical advice.
President Higgins concluded: “There are many for whom an insightful and twinkling intelligence has left us, but it will endure in the lines of the poems as he wished.
Sabina and I offer our condolences to his sister Nancy, his brothers, Sean, John, Alan and Paddy, his granddaughters and the extended family as well as his wide circle of friends, all of whom treasured his presence among them, a friendship he valued.
Provost of Trinity College Dublin Linda Doyle described Kennelly as “an inspiring teacher, a talented poet and a warm and good humoured presence on campus”.
It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Brendan Kennelly today. He was an inspiring teacher, a talented poet and a warm and good humoured presence on campus. He will be missed by his much loved family, Trinity and the country. @tcddublin pic.twitter.com/3JQcqFQ8W5
— Linda Doyle (@LindaDoyle) October 17, 2021
- Additional reporting from Adam Daly
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tks to gov press office for this long read.still trying to “float” the idea of water charges and then sell off to private companies.Need only to look to the UK to see what private water companies are like with the scandals/practices there for the last year or two.FFG still testing the waters to see if we forgot we said NO!
@MHM: or to Flint in the USA.
Drinking water is a basic need for all and should never be privatised for that reason.
This government is trying to off-load its responsibilities to private businesses whose only motivation is profit, often at the expense of people.
Ditto for the “women in the home” change to the constitution.
Before removing protections for women, the government needs to provide state-funded quality childcare from the cradle to university as happens in Scandinavian countries since the seventies.
@MHM: Those practices are already well underway here. Uisce Eireann have deliberately been doing a cack-handed job so that people will eventually concede that our water supply needs to be privatised. Here in Wexford Town, there have been more water outages in the past two years than in the prior two decades.
This is the type of thing that Eamon Ryan and the posh greens should be loosing sleep over rather than taxing us and telling us there are 20000 different genders
It’s no wonder that the fire brigade have to hose down all the swimmers after the Liffey Swim.
Raw sewage enters the Irish sea all down the Dublin coast.
Anyone swimming in the sea in Dublin is ingesting other people’s faeces.
Again the joke that is Irish Water or whatever they are called now. Before we know it water charges will be raising their ugly head again.
Self-regulation strikes again.
To me the only restriction to swimming in the sea in Ireland is how bloody cold the water is.
@Jipangu: come here to Finland. They pay 10 euro in the winter so they came get into a hole in the frozen lake to swim
While there is no effective deterrent, there will be no solution. Huge fines and or prison will sake things up before it’s too late.
This problem seems to arise in areas with large caravan/mobile home parks near by, I wonder if there is a connection?
I want my dry robe money back
I swim daily at Seapoint, and will continue to do so. I will not be deturd.
It said 26 towns in Ireland releasing raw sewage.
There are probably 26 in Kerry alone
have your say