Peter Kavanagh
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Dr. Peter Kavanagh (1916-2006), writer, scholar, and publisher. Most notably recognized for his contribution to Irish literature for having collected, edited, and published the works of the poet, Patrick Kavanagh.
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[edit] Education
Peter Kavanagh was born in the parish of Inniskeen, Ireland, March 19th, 1916. He was the youngest of ten children. He attended the local schools, continued to secondary school, and upon receiving his diploma from the Patrician Brothers School in Carrickmacross, Dr. Kavanagh o attended St. Patrick’s Teachers College, Dublin, where he became a certified National Teacher (1936), graduated M.A. from the National University of Ireland (1941), and Ph.D. from Trinity College, Dublin (1944).
Dr. Kavanagh never considered himself to be an educated person. He stated in several of his works that his real education began when from an early age he reviewed and advised on each poem written by his brother the poet. It was Dr. Kavanagh who gave the impulse to Patrick Kavanagh’s two famous epics, The Great Hunger and Lough Derg. He urged the poet to write the poems, and was sole critic and audience during the process. Later, Patrick Kavanagh denounced the Great Hunger as being stillborn because it was a social statement. He claimed that a poet is apart from the people, therefore not a social commentator. Patrick too, would not allow Lough Derg to be published fearing he had intruded on the souls of honest pilgrims. He was concerned that he had committed a sin in writing the poem. Peter took the longhand manuscript and had it typed anyway. When he showed it to Patrick, Peter was told to keep it and do with it what he wished. Peter, too, was concerned about the possible sin and so he waited twenty-eight years, four years after Patrick’s death, to publish it in his first posthumous collection of the poet’s work, November Haggard. (1971)
[edit] Scholarship
Dr. Kavanagh began his writing career as the historian of the Irish theatre. His first publication, The Irish Theatre (1947), detailed the origins and development of theatre in Ireland from the beginning of recorded history to the middle twentieth century. It has been noted as the most comprehensive work written on the subject. His next work was The Story of the Abbey Theatre, New York 1950. Sean O’Casey described it in a front-page review in the New York Times Book Review as “impartial history and the best book written on the subject.” In 1950 Dr. Kavanagh edited the subject Ireland in the Encyclopedia Americana and wrote for the American Mercury.
In 1952 with Patrick Kavanagh, he founded Kavanagh’s Weekly, a literary journal created by the two men to give the poet a forum in which to express his point-of-view. Neither Dr. Kavanagh, nor his brother realized the immense writing task necessary to fill one issue let alone a second or third, so Dr. Kavanagh joined Patrick by writing a majority of the articles in the thirteen issues under a number of pseudonyms. Though it lasted only thirteen weeks it is now legendary in Irish literary history for the controversy it created.
[edit] Publishing
Dr. Kavanagh first came to The Unites States in 1946 where he began teaching at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York. From 1947-1949 he was a Professor of Modern Poetry at Loyola University, Chicago. From 1949- 1950 he taught poetry at Gannon College (now University) in Erie, Pennsylvania, and 1964-1968 at the University of Wisconsin, Menomonie.
In 1958 Dr. Kavanagh, now living permanently in New York, built his own printing press from scraps of wood and metal scrounged from construction sites near his apartment on East 29th Street, New York. Kavanagh had a natural ability for engineering, and was able to draw blueprints and construct the press with no formal training and no outside help. He began to experiment with the printing trade. He printed and published a series of plays he had written based on the lives of several Catholic saints who interested Kavanagh because each followed a similar theme; the courage of telling the truth.
He considered the printing work a diversion from his mission because he did not plan to publish his own work; rather, he set out to publish his brother’s poetry, which had been largely ignored by commercial publishers. Dr. Kavanagh dismissed commercial publishing as being substandard. His first major accomplishment as publisher of the Peter Kavanagh Handpress, was to print, publish, and copyright a selection of Patrick's poetry in a work entitled, Recent Poems. The volume was praised not for its beauty, for there were many typographical errors, but for its selection. Many consider the poems in the work to be Patrick Kavanagh’s finest.
Dr.Kavanagh made the news once more when, in 1960, he hand printed a synopsis of the John Quinn letters then held exclusively by the New York Public Library. The New York Times of January 17th 1960 reported the event in a front-page story. The Library sued for breach of copyright. Dr. Kavanagh closed the legal issue by destroying the edition with much fanfare, dumping the shredded remains on the floor of the courtroom, thereby ending the case. The story commanded worldwide attention.
After the death of Patrick Kavanagh in 1967, Dr. Kavanagh ended his career as a Professor of Modern Poetry at the University of Wisconsin, Menomonie, and began publishing a series of books on the poet’s life: Lapped Furrows (1969), correspondence between himself and Patrick as well as a memoir on Patrick by Sister Celia; November Haggard, a collection of prose and poetry (1971); Garden of the Golden Apples, A Bibilography (1971);Complete Poems of Patrick Kavanagh (1972, 1984, 1996, 2000), Sacred Keeper (1978), a biography; Patrick Kavanagh: A Life Chronicle (2000), also a biography; and several other books including a Dictionary of Irish Mythology, several plays including The Dancing Flame: A Documentary Drama of the Poet in Society (1981); and his own autobiography in two parts, Beyond Affection (1977) and Piling Up the Ricks (1989). He devoted the rest of his life to placing the works of the poet on the record, effectively creating what is known as the canon of the works of Patrick Kavanagh. He fulfilled his obligation to poetry bestowed upon him in a letter from Patrick dated 31 January, 1964 to act as his Sacred Keeper:
“…But Nothing From You, Who Are the Sacred Keeper Of My Sacred Conscience.” (Lapped Furrows, p. 250)
In 1986, Dr. Kavanagh negotiated the sale of Patrick Kavanagh's papers as well as a large collection of his own work devoted to the late poet. Dr. Kavanagh included in the sale his original handpress. The archive is housed in a special collections room at the University College Dublin, and the handpress is on loan to the Patrick Kavanagh Literary Resource Centre, Inniskeen. Kavanagh was pleased that his life’s work and that of the poet remain permanently in Ireland for the use of future scholars.
Peter Kavanagh died in New York on January 27, 2006, and is buried in his family plot in his native Parish of Inniskeen, Ireland.
[edit] Bibliography
Kavanagh, Peter, ed. Lapped Furrows: Correspondence 1933-1967 Between Patrick and Peter Kavanagh;With Other Documents, Peter Kavanagh Hand Press, New York, 1969
Kavanagh, Peter, ed. November Haggard, Peter Kavanagh Handpress, New York 1971
Kavanagh, Peter. Beyond Affection, Peter Kavanagh, Peter Kavanagh Handpress, New York, 1977
The Complete Poems of Patrick Kavanagh: With Commentary by Peter Kavanagh - Peter Kavanagh Hand Press Inc. 1996
Patrick Kavanagh: A Life Chronicle. Peter Kavanagh. Peter Kavanagh Hand Press, New York, 2000.
Private diaries of Peter Kavanagh (1970-2005)
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