Looking for rhyme and reasons

For all his undoubted qualities, Brendan Kennelly does not appear to meet the full criteria for having a literary festival named after him. Specifically there's the fact that he is - there's no easy way to say this - still alive. It may seem petty to point this out. But until now, the highest honour an undead Irish person could hope for was a Late Late Show special. And while there's no law that says the subject of a summer school or festival may not be extant, it is irregular, to say the least.

The tradition of celebrating writers' lives posthumously has served Ireland well. Just as there is a convention that one does not speak ill of the dead, it is established practice, especially in literary circles, not to speak well of the living, if this can be at all avoided. It's a system that works and, as shown by the incidence of summer schools and symposiums honouring departed genius, is popular.

But Kennelly was alive - and not apologising for it - at the inaugural Brendan Kennelly Summer Festival in Ballylongford, Co Kerry, at the weekend, reading his poetry at the opening ceremony, addressing workshops about his writing and even attending lectures about his life and work.

The organisers bravely ignored this inconvenience, and the frequent rain, and the event was judged a big success. A worrying precedent has been created, however. And in a country with as many living poets as this one, next year's summer-school season will be awaited with dread.

Mary Kennelly, one of the organisers and a niece of the festival's theme, was not apologising either. She says the exercise is designed mainly "to put Ballylongford on the map" and to advance the cause of a planned cultural centre - also to be named after the poet - for the village.

The event is "definitely not a summer school", she adds, insisting that as it grows it will encompass all forms of expression, but with a special place for "humorous poetry". When it's suggested to her that this approach might deter serious poets, she says "thanks be to God!" before clamping a hand to her mouth. "Don't say I said that."

The main event also dismissed the significance of the occasion. "I don't really see it as being about myself at all," he said, heroically ignoring a 12-page supplement in his honour from festival sponsors the Sunday Tribune, reminiscent of those published to mark the Irish visits of the Pope and John F. Kennedy. "I'm a contributor, really, like others. But if my name can be of any help to promoting the event, or the centre, I'm happy for it to be used."

Ballylongford could do with being put on the map. Tourists who pass through here - and most of them do - have probably missed the turn-off for Listowel. It wouldn't be true to say the village is in the middle of nowhere, but only because it lacks the centrality the middle of nowhere can claim.

Sited on an inlet in the Shannon estuary, it's not quite coastal and it's not quite inland. In the poet's words, "it's not really on the road to anywhere"; at least, not since the English sacked nearby Carrigafoyle Castle, ancient seat of the O'Connors, in 1580.

The O'Connors were back in town at the weekend, for the fifth international clan gathering, which coincided with the festival. But it must have seemed they'd been dispossessed again. The Kennellys had Ballylongford firmly in their grip, and they weren't letting go. The crossroads pub, where some of the readings took place, is run by Alan Kennelly, a brother of the poet; festival speakers included local schoolteacher and writer Paddy Kennelly (another brother, Mary's father); while formal tributes included one from the Kerry county arts officer, Kate Kennelly (a niece). It looked as if the bards had taken over the castle.

Kennelly would demur from such a suggestion, but he accepts these are good times to be a poet - a point underlined by the festival programme, which, as well as featuring tributes to him from admirers as diverse as Bono and Sir Anthony O'Reilly, carried a photograph of Kennelly with Patrick Kavanagh in Trinity College in 1965, on the occasion of the younger poet being made a fellow.

Kavanagh was "an icon to me as to many others," he says, but the picture is a reminder that poets didn't always have it so good.

There's a bottle of whiskey in Kavanagh's pocket, just out of picture, Kennelly remembers. Famously hard to love, the Monaghan man's reputation suggests his life would have been difficult to celebrate while it was continuing.

And while Kennelly says he never found him less than affable, he adds: "He drank too much. He was quite lonely and broke much of the time. He had a long period of silence.

"There was nothing to encourage the poet then, and drink and discouragement often go together. There was very little communication with the public. Maybe if he'd got a sense of a loving, responsive audience, things would have been different."

The contrast now is dramatic. "Poets are well looked after these days, reflecting the change in Irish life generally. Especially if you're elected to Aosdβna, you can have a good income, an untaxed income. And a book of poetry can sell thousands of copies now, whereas Kavanagh would have been happy to sell hundreds."

The remoteness of north Kerry has its advantages. The area has about 80 per cent of the country's known reserves of folk wisdom, and its uniquely colourful language is well known, having inspired more writers per square mile than possibly any other part of Ireland.

But it has obvious disadvantages, too - emigration in the past, marginalisation now - and Ballylongford's population of about 250 is only half what it was when Kennelly was growing up.

The festival is an attempt to reinject some vitality and, literary events aside, Kennelly was proudest of the fact that on Friday night, there was music and dancing in the street until 4.30 a.m.

Even by the standards of the more relaxed summer schools, the non-academic events are an important part of the curriculum here.

Indeed, while the workshops continued on Saturday afternoon at St Oliver's school, students of a different kind packed Kennelly's pub for a spirited debate on subjects including whether the referee in the replayed All-Ireland football quarter final was blind or what.

Some uniquely colourful north-Kerry language was levelled at the television set as the Dublin comeback gathered pace. But Kerry people know genius when they see it. And when Maurice Fitzgerald sublimely flicked a ball off the ground into his hands late in Saturday's game, everyone in the pub agreed it was pure poetry.

A former Kerry minor who played Dublin in the 1954 All-Ireland final, Kennelly wouldn't disagree or, on this occasion, try to compete.

But it's in this same pub, listening to singers and storytellers, that he learned some of the tricks of his trade, which may have sustained him during this mould-breaking festival. "The drinking used to go on until the early hours of the morning, and I loved listening to the stories and the songs. But I was always particularly impressed by the self-assertiveness of the balladeers, the kind of amiable cockiness they had. The attitude that 'I have something to say here and it's worth hearing'."