The need to celebrate Kavanagh

Sir — Mary O’Rourke’s tribute to Patrick Kavanagh (Sunday Independent, November 26) is to be commended. O’Rourke is one of the few voices to be heard celebrating one of Ireland’s greatest poets on the 50th anniversary of his passing.

It was enjoyable to read of her experience with Kavanagh and interesting that she raised the connection with Donogh O’Malley. While his native Monaghan is making an effort, the lack of celebration from official institutions is shameful.

A single round-table discussion on Kavanagh’s work along with a reading offered by Trinity College is a pathetic tribute to a man who contributed so much to poetry.

Not only should Kavanagh’s poetry be celebrated for its own sake, but his impact on poetry more broadly through his influence on so many subsequent great Irish poets, chiefly, Paul Durcan, Brendan Kennelly and Seamus Heaney, is a legacy worth acknowledging with more consideration.

Were it Yeats or Joyce or another over-celebrated literary figure, the celebrations would have been abundant. However, because of Kavanagh’s ordinary appeal, which O’Rourke rightly praised, he goes unacknowledged by the self-appointed Irish literary elite. Wouldn’t it be wise for them to take Kavanagh’s advice and move away from being a “breed of fakes” and rather aspire to achieve “what it takes in the living poetry stakes” or simply try to be more like Mary O’Rourke? Keith O Riain, Crecora, Co Limerick