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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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