Life
1944- ; b. Coralstown, Co. Westmeath; ed. UCC, UCD, and Maynooth, taught
in Regional Technical College, Waterford, becoming Head of Humanities
there; Night on Hibernia (Dublin: Gallery Press 1976), winner of
1975 Patrick Kavanagh Prize; ed. Poetry Ireland in 1898; winner
of Listowel Open Poetry Competition, 1995; citation from Irish American
Cultural Institute, 1996; lectures at Waterford Regional College. DIL
OCIL FDA
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Works
Night on Hibernia (Dublin: Gallery Press 1976); Dolmen Hill
(Dublin: Gallery Press 1977), incl. “Orpheus”, a longer poem; A Drink of Spring (Dublin: Gallery Press 1979]; The Burren Days (Dublin: Dedalus 1985); Arboretum (Dublin: Dedalus Press 1990); In a Green Shade (Dublin: Dedalus Press 1991); Down in the Deeper
Helicon (Dublin: Dedalus 1995), 223pp.; Telling the Bees (Dedalus
Press 1995) [three longer poems incl. “Letter to Connla” and
“This Other Umbria”]; Selected Poems (Dublin Dedalus
Press 1997) [var. 1996], 224pp.; Near St. Mullins (Dublin: Dedalus
Press 2002), 78pp.
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References
Peter Fallon & Seán Golden, eds., Soft
Day, a miscellany of Contemporary Irish Writing (Notre Dame; Dublin:
Wolfhound 1980), selects “Corbetstown”; “The Croppy Boy”;
“Alice of Daphne, 1799”; also represented in John F. Deane,
ed., Dedalus Irish Poets: An Anthology (1992).
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Quotations
“The Years”: ‘Waking to the clatter of hot-plate kettle
/ and pan, knives and forks on the table, / The strains of Handel’s Water Music / jubilant above the sizzling bacon / The poised voice
of the BBC / announcing the Store Cattle Market - / I’d hear him
off down in Lethe / rattle the grate of the Auburn range / Free of ashes,
top up the Winetown / fire for my college-cycling breakfast, / Switch
the wavelength back to Athlone / Then he’d move out into the darkness,
/ be swallowed up by the sheds.’ [Cited by Christina Hunt Mahony;
IASIL paper, Barcelona 1999.]
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