An Irishman's Diary

I KNEW the years were getting shorter, but when the first press releases for the annual Patrick Kavanagh weekend arrived recently, I thought, this is ridiculous. Long confined to the last weekend of November, the event has traditionally been the final major literary celebration of the year, barring the mass writing of letters to Santa Claus. Surely it couldn’t be that time already? No, mercifully, it wasn’t. It turns out that the Kavanagh commemoration, like Christmas (probably), is coming earlier this year. And there are a number of reasons, chief among them the weather.

The privilege of its season-ending place in the calendar – a date bequeathed by the poet’s death on November 30th, 1967 – was perhaps always a dubious one.

But the event’s organisers are still traumatised by last November when, in case you’ve forgotten, the first of that winter’s arctic freezes gripped the country, with snow and ice and (especially around Inniskeen) impassable roads.

Some experts have since predicted that such winters may become a longer-term trend. In any case, the Kavanagh Centre has taken the hint and abandoned November, in favour of a move to the leafier surrounds of mid-autumn. The 2011 weekend will run from September 30th to October 2nd. And already the personality of the event seems to have grown sunnier.

This year’s flyers depict a jaunty version of Kavanagh’s farmer-poet, the one suggested by his lines: “On an apple-ripe September morning/Through the mist-chill fields I went/With a pitch-fork on my shoulder/Less for use than for devilment.” Mist-chill is in; wind-chill is out. Or so the organisers hope.

That said, there will be a Novemberish theme to at least one of the weekend's events: "Beckett in Inniskeen", presented by the Drumlin Players. Subtitled "Chuckles and Chills in Life's Departure Lounge", this is a Beckett double-header featuring Krapp's Last Tapeand A Piece of Monologue. It was a big hit at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The weekend’s dominant theme, however, is harvest time (minus the Grim Reaper). This year’s keynote address, “Meeting Patrick Kavanagh”, will be given by his fellow poet and spiritual successor, Paul Durcan. More details are at patrickkavanaghcountry.com

AN INDIRECTeffect of moving two months up the literary calendar is that Kavanagh will thereby also steal a march on his one-time drinking pal, Brian O'Nolan, whose centenary events centre on October. In fact, the "Flann 100" or "100 Myles", as it is variously called, has been going strong since April 1st, when the anniversary of his tragicomically-timed death was marked by an afternoon of readings in Dublin's Palace Bar.

Since then, there have been commemorations of one kind or another in Dalkey, Vienna, and – most recently – Dún Laoghaire. But the actual centenary of his birth in early October will be celebrated by readings in at least two Dublin venues – UCD’s Newman House and Bewley’s Cafe Theatre – while O’Nolan’s birthplace, Strabane, Co Tyrone, will have a week of events around the date.

The only O'Nolan-related place that, to my knowledge, has no plans to mark the year is Tullamore, Co Offaly, where the writer spent some of his childhood and which is said to have inspired the landscape of hell in his novel The Third Policeman. Maybe the locals there have taken that the wrong way. In any case, the curtain will be brought down on the centenary by a conference in Trinity College from October 14th-16th.

Chairing a panel discussion at Dún Laoghaire’s “Mountains to the Sea” festival last weekend, I invited one of the TCD conference organisers, Carol Taaffe, to comment on the irony whereby Trinity appears to be hosting the main commemoration in Dublin of a man who was famously a UCD graduate. Disappointingly (and wisely), however, she handed me back that chalice, unsipped.

During a less formal panel discussion afterwards, in a nearby pub, a group of “Flannoracs” (as we’re now known) agreed that, despite all the commemorations, O’Nolan’s literary immortality would not be assured until he had a statue somewhere.

We also concluded that this should depict him at his most dapper, in the Emergency-chic hat and overcoat that defined him.

But assuming the funds could be found for such a memorial, the question was where to locate it, in Dublin’s already statue-crowded streets? One possibility is Harry Street, outside McDaid’s, a pub with which he – and Kavanagh – were, for good or bad, synonymous. Among other things, siting it there would make for an interesting dynamic between O’Nolan and another nattily dressed figure whose bronze likeness already adorns the street, Phil Lynott.

On the other hand, maybe two statues in a small space would be considered a crowd hazard.

In which case, a second possibility suggests itself; moving it indoors, to the pub itself. Just as Kavanagh’s Grand Canal statue has him sitting on a bench (for which reason, strictly speaking, it’s not a statue), perhaps McDaid’s could host a similar character-sketch, in bronze, leaning against the bar? Or perhaps readers have other suggestions.