A Poet in the House: Patrick Kavanagh at Priory Grove

Patrick Kavanagh (1904-67) was one of Ireland’s foremost poets, best known for ‘The Great Hunger’ and novel Tarry Flynn.He is also remembered for his cantankerous, sometimes volatile nature, fuelled by alcohol. In A Poet in the House: Patrick Kavanagh at Priory Grove, a memoir by Elizabeth O’Toole, we encounter a new Patrick Kavanagh.In 1961, the poet lived with the O’Toole family in Stillorgan for six months at a crucial point in his life, when he was sober, industrious and, as the accompanying photographs will show, much loved by her children.Until now, no one has been aware of how close Kavanagh was to O’Toole and to her husband, James Davitt Bermingham O’Toole.Born and raised in China, Jim O’Toole was the author of Man Alive, a play about the inner workings of the ESB that created a storm of controversy in 1961.On the first night, Kavanagh told the audience that the press was ‘lily-livered’. This was not just ‘a local row’. One of the ESB’s top executives, Jim O’Donovan, was the IR