Green Fool

My part of Ireland had a poet at one time a poor ragged fellow whom no respectable person whom no respectable person would be seen talking to but he left doors open as he passed. Time hardly mattered in the village of Mucker the birthplace of poet and writer Patrick Kavanagh. Full of wry humour Kavanaghs unsentimental and evocative account of his Irish rural upbringing describes a patriarchal society surviving on the edge of poverty sustained by the land and an insatiable love of gossip. There are tales of schoolboy skirmishes blackberrying and nighttime salmonpoaching of countryweddings and fairs of political banditry and religious pilgrimages and of farmwork in the fields and kicking mares. Kavanaghs experiences inspired him to write poetry which immortalized a fastdisappearing way of life and brought him recognition as one of Irelands great poets.