'the Hospital', Patrick Kavanagh (Critical Essay‪)‬

There is a sense in which Kavanagh's work was always there and always mattered. My older brothers bought a record player in the mid-sixties and one of the earliest LPs which made its way into the house was a Claddagh Records recording of Almost Everything: Written and Spoken by Patrick Kavanagh. The record was probably bought for my mother. Her brother had introduced her to the work of Kavanagh. He had a deep interest in literature and had occasionally sent her issues of The Bell. She recalled his telling her at one point 'There's a wee farmer in Co Monaghan who thinks he can write poetry'. He was, true to form, praising Kavanagh with faint damnation. I was old enough to get some of the cranked-up Northern irony on the album, enjoying the bits about Kavanagh's Weekly and 'The Parochial and the Provincial'. There was also a recording, about the same time, of 'Tarry Flynn', sung in Clancy Brothers mode, a portrait of Kavanagh as a sort of rustic flaneur, soon bound for escape and glory: