The biography of one of Ireland's greatest poets, Patrick Kavanagh - A Life Chronicle, is the culmination of a lifetime's work by his brother, Peter. It has come into being in the past few weeks without fuss or fanfare. It offers new and fascinating insights into the poet's inner turmoil and his lifelong struggle to make ends meet.
In Ireland, there will be some 1,000 copies of the book available, and far fewer than that in America, where Peter Kavanagh has lived for many years. In Cork last weekend, Mr Michael O'Reilly, the retired Dublin businessman who has sponsored its publication, spoke of his friendship with Peter Kavanagh and Peter's burning desire to tell his brother's story as only he knew it.
"I know Monaghan, I know the poetry and I wanted to help - there's no more to it than that," he said.
Peter Kavanagh was at Patrick's side, at the end of a telephone or in touch with him by letter, throughout his productive life as a poet, and was his confidant and adviser on matters literary and otherwise.
Before Patrick's marriage late in life, he made Peter the sole beneficiary of his estate, manuscripts published and unpublished.
What has emerged is a bitter story on one hand and a celebration on the other of a poet who eked out (and often scrounged) a living where he could, but who remained faithful to his poetic muse. At times, he was on the verge of starvation, at times reduced to begging for a few shillings.
The book conjures up the life of the poet with sublime indifference to those who thought they knew him or believed they were close to him. "I couldn't care less about anyone," Peter Kavanagh said at the weekend from his home in New York. "I had to do this for Patrick's sake and now it's done.
"This is the authoritative account of Patrick's life. I was the only one who was that close to him; he would not allow anyone else get as close. I did it for him and I did it for the generations to come who may want to know the real poet and the way he lived his life." In a sense, this is an underground book but, having arrived tentatively in the public domain after a long labour, it will not go unnoticed by the scholars.
Now in his 85th year, Peter Kavanagh holds strongly to the view that his brother, despite the growing popularity of his poetry since his death, has never been honoured properly in his own country.
The neglect, as he sees it, compounds the sometimes savage treatment of him during his lifetime when his suffering was often acute.
The book is published under the imprint of The Peter Kavanagh Hand Press in New York. While it may make waves, it is not destined to make money but, then, that was never the motivating factor, Peter says.
Further information may be had from Michael O'Reilly (Tel: 087 253 0600).