Patrick Galvin
| Patrick Galvin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 15 August 1927 Cork, Ireland |
| Died | 10 May 2011 (aged 83) Cork, Ireland |
| Occupation | Poet, Dramatist |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Citizenship | Ireland |
| Notable works | Song for a Raggy Boy (1990), Christ in London (1960), Cry the Believers (1960), We Do It For Love (1975) |
Patrick Galvin (15 August 1927 – 10 May 2011) was an Irish poet, singer, playwright, and prose and screen writer born in Cork's inner city.
Galvin was born in Cork in 1927 at a time of great political transition in Ireland. His mother was a Republican and his father a Free Stater which gave rise to ongoing political tension within the household and later informed his well loved poem "My Father Spoke with Swans" and his autobiographical memoir Song For a Poor Boy. An autodidact, he came to know and love literature through the Russian, French and Irish classics. His early poetry shows the influences of Gaelic poetry whilst his later poetry reflects more international rhythms and themes. He had grown up during the time of the Spanish Civil war under the shawl of his mother's Republican politics and later discovered a great affinity with the Andalusian poet, Federico García Lorca; these influences are evident in his epic poem about Michael Collins, 'The White Monument'. His childhood ended dramatically when he was sent to Daingean industrial school, noted for its abuse of young people in its care. This experience had a powerful influence on his earlier poetry which expresses the fear and brutality of that time:
Come fifteen now, the flogging belt, the prison cell,
The cruel days, the friendships hanged and cold,
The dead beat of winter and the hungry bell,
The very young are battered and grow old.
And every day they stand about and watch and stare,
The shaven heads, the broken ribs, the iron rod.
And every night they weep an empty eye
And curse the hand that killed Almighty God.
In his prose memoir Song For a Raggy Boy he contextualises those experiences within the Europe of the second world war. Irritated by Ireland’s neutral stance he joined the Royal Air Force in 1943. His anti-war memoir Song for a Flyboy from 2003 records his war experiences and his play The Devil’s Own People from 1976 denounces Ireland’s neutrality in the face of fascism and the Holocaust.
After the breakdown of his first marriage, at the age of 21, he went on to establish himself as a folksinger, song writer and collector, recording nine volumes of folk songs as well as publishing Irish Songs of Resistance 1798 -1922. He travelled widely during this period going behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ to East Germany as a troubadour. These experiences marked his work and his personal life. He began to publish poetry in many leading English and Irish journals and he co-founded and edited the literary magazine Chanticleer. His first collection of poetry Heart of Grace, 1957 was closely followed by the second Christ in London, 1960 . At that time he was also in the process of establishing himself as a playwright in London and Dublin where his work was closely monitored by the Catholic Church hierarchy in Ireland, which found that his play Cry the Believers was not one "to which young, impressionable minds could be exposed without risk to faith". He was given the reputation of being the "Enfant terrible of the Irish Theatre" by one Irish critic. He came back to Ireland in the 1960s but, unable to adapt to the conservatism of that time, he returned to London and spent intervals abroad in Israel.
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