Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

In the week of John Montague's 80th birthday, fellow poet Thomas McCarthylooks at the career and life of a man who has produced a body of work that has a national grandeur. Always mischievous at readings and in company, Montague plays down the brilliant circle of scholars from which he emerged.

THERE WAS DORIS LESSING, just four years ago, walking briskly through the English Market in Cork, surrounded by a phalanx of minders. When the poet Theo Dorgan pointed to a young woman at the olive stall and remarked that she was the daughter of Montague, Doris Lessing immediately stopped and addressed her: “Please tell your father I was asking after him,” and again, she commanded: “You will not forget! I wish to be remembered to your father.”