The poet who endured life’s travails with grace and wit
IN THE FIRST OF A THREE-PART SERIES WE TALK TO PHILIP’S BROTHERS, THE ‘LOVE OF HIS LIFE’ AND HIS FRIENDS FROM GOREY, WRITES SIMON BOURKE
I had originally planned to write just one article about Philip Casey. I would review one of his books, document his life and times, and move on to the next author in this series.
However, from the moment I began reaching out to Philip’s family members, his friends, his literary colleagues, it became apparent that this was no ordinary man, that his was a story which would require more than one telling. And so, before you lies the first in a three-part series focusing on a man who was born in London, died in Dublin, but was very much of this parish.
It can be tempting to romanticise that which you’ve left behind, to make it seem better than it actually was. But when Pat and Ann Casey decided to return to Ireland in 1957 they did so with the intention of starting an entirely new life.
Both had emigrated to London in the 1940s in search of work – Pat from Laois, Ann from Sligo. They found that. They also found one another. Marriage followed and in 1950 the first of their four children was born, Philip. He was soon joined by his brothers John and Peter, and in 1957 the Caseys, having had their fill of England, sailed back to Ireland.
‘By scrimping and saving they had put enough money together to buy a small farm that was up for sale in Wexford,’ John says. ‘ The land was a bit wet, the house was in a dreadful condition and hefty mortgage would have to be paid. However, the prospect of owning his own farm back in Ireland was a temptation dad was unable to resist.’
‘Ballinataggart’ was in the old parish of Killisk but, despite Pat and Ann’s best efforts, it stubbornly refused to turn a profit. Old sheds were levelled, new ones built, cows, hens and pigs were purchased, fields were ploughed, crops planted, but to no avail.
Bloodied but unbowed the Caseys searched for pastures new, still dreaming of being farmers, still determined to make a living off the land. And in 1961 the family moved to Grove Mill, a small farm near the village of Hollyfort, and the place which would inspire much of their eldest son’s later work.
By this point, at the age of 11, Philip Casey had already shown himself to be a studious boy, excelling in English at Screen National School, and doing the same in Monaseed where his talents led to classmates continually pestering for help with their essays.
However, in order to fully understand his formative years one must briefly return to London and a hospital visit which would leave an indelible mark on the future poet and novelist.
Philip’s brother Peter takes up the story. ‘He spent great chunks of his life in hospital, it sort of ruined his normal education. It goes back to our time in London, he was in the Great Northern Hospital around 1952, with swelling in his groin, and they found he had a sarcoma.
‘He received radium treatment to try and burn it out, it was very experimental at the time. It did damage to him and as a result he had one leg shorter than the other and had to wear a boot.’
This botched procedure would affect Philip for the rest of his life, not least during his schooldays. ‘He used to get jeered at and mocked for it, I’d suppose you’d call it bullying today, and he got into a lot of fights. But he always won, he was very tough my brother,’ Peter recalls.
By the time he was 13, Philip’s ‘good leg’ was five-and-a-half inches longer than the other and he was admitted to Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital, in Finglas for what was hoped would be corrective surgery.
‘When he was in Cappagh he had terrible surgeries, it was pioneering treatment and was supposed to stunt the growth in one leg and lengthen the other, make the two legs the same. But complications set in,’ Peter says.
‘He was there for three years and even when he came out he had to go in every Monday, be put in transit, he said it was excrutiating, like being on the rack. He eventually lost circulation in his left leg and several operations later he had to have it amputated, twice.’
Although these were torturous years for Philip, the suffering he endured shaped the person he was to become.
‘It helped mould him into that amazing human being that people from all over came to know and love,’ says John. ‘ The stoic, the kind one, the generous one, the humble one, the empathetic one, the calm one, the wise one. Isn’t it usually people who have been put through the wringer in life who develop qualities such as these?’
Despite his physical limitations Philip was a keen hurler, and long-time friend Sean Halford says his big claim to fame was ‘saving a penalty from legendary Wexford corner-back, Tony Doran’. But while he was proud of his endeavours on the hurling pitch, it was Philip’s skills as a poet and novelist which set him apart.
Having helped Paul Funge to launch The Funge Arts Centre (later the Gorey Arts Centre) in the early 1970s, Philip moved away from Wexford, spending time in Barcelona before settling in Dublin. Now a full-time writer his first poetry collection, Those Distant Summers, was published in 1980, borrowing heavily from his time growing up in Holyfort.
It was followed by After Thunder in 1985 but in between there were two cataclysmic moments, not least the arrival of a woman who many view as the ‘ love of Philip Casey’s life’. Although she herself disputes this title.
‘People say I was his great love but I think that’s because I stayed around,’ says Ulrike Boskamp from her home in Berlin. ‘Philip had a lot of girlfriends, a lot, and he had lots of great loves.’
The pair met for the first time in 1982, when Philip was 31 and Ulrike 18. And although she was going out with one of Philip’s friends at the time theirs was a romance which couldn’t be denied.
‘I fell completely in love with Philip, my boyfriend wasn’t happy of course, but he understood there was a force much bigger than either of us at play,’ Ulrike recalls. ‘ Philip was extremely intelligent and an extreme gentleman. But it wasn’t the poetry that drew me to him or his ability for language, although that was a factor, it was his brain. Yes, he had that huge generosity which everyone mentioned, but what I really liked was his sharpness.
‘I loved how when he thought something was really important he followed it up with extreme vigour and force, and that extended to his political ideas. He was very left-wing, and when he decided something was right he would follow through on it.
‘On the one hand he had a big heart, and all this love and generosity. On the other he had an amazing sharpness and will to know things. It’s not something you would always associate with a poet.’
They were a couple for a little over a year, until Ulrike went to South America to spend some time travelling. Upon her return she hoped they would resume their romance but instead they settled for a friendship which endured right up until Philip’s death in 2018.
In and out of hospital for much of his life, Philip’s leg was amputated below the knee in 1983 and again in 1993. And yet he never allowed his ailments, the pain he endured on a constant basis, to affect those
ON THE ONE HAND HE HAD A BIG HEART, ALL THIS LOVE AND GENEROSITY. ON THE OTHER HE HAD AN AMAZING SHARPNESS AND WILL TO KNOW THINGS
around him, on the contrary.
‘It was tough going for him in his later years, but he never let us suffer it, he smiled through it all,’ says Peter.
By this time he had settled in Dublin and in a house which would play host to poets, authors and literary enthusiasts from around the world. Situated on Arran St on the capital’s Northside it became a go-to spot for local writers, a meeting point for Philip’s wide circle of friends, and a place where ideas were shared, stories told, and memories made.
It was while living there that
Philip penned what became known as the Bann River Trilogy, (the first of which, The Fabulists, is reviewed above), and also set up the free online resource, Irish Writers Online. Yet, Holyfort was always home, the place he gravitated to, the place where a plaque in his honour stands over the Bann River.
‘We’d do the Summer Solstice on at Tara Hill,’ recalls Sean Halford. ‘We’d get together a few times a year and go for a drive up to Hollyfort. He loved seeing the old places, loved Gorey. He’d always call into Nessons at the Station, Sean
Walsh, myself and Kay.’
When it became apparent that Philip’s health had worsened, he bore the news in his usual fashion. ‘When he got the news he hadn’t long left he tried to sugarcoat it, told us he had months when really he only had weeks,’ Peter says. He received many visitors during those final weeks, Ulrike among them. ‘I went there at the end of 2017. He was in bad pain at the time but it was wonderful to be able to sit there with him. I brought him strawberries, we’d have them for breakfast, and just sit and talk.’