Peter Kavanagh, younger brother of the poet Patrick Kavanagh, is to be buried at Inniskeen in Co Monaghan, following his death on Saturday in New York at the age of 89.
He had worked as a professor of English literature in the United States and spent much of his life making his brother's name known and honoured.
Irish writer Colum McCann recalled that "if anyone dared have a go at Patrick, Peter was known for speaking out very forcefully on behalf of his brother's legacy . . . he brightened up when anyone showed interest in Patrick's work".
A playwright, editor, scholar and his brother's biographer, he was renowned for a fiery temperament. He once smashed a plaque erected to the memory of his brother at a pub in London because the inscription referred to Patrick urinating outside it.
Mr Kavanagh was custodian of much of his brother's work through his printing company, The Peter Kavanagh Hand Press.
In 1981, The New York Times described Peter as "both management and labor at the Peter Kavanagh Hand Press" with "a blunderbuss of a tongue" that fired off complaints about "landlords, publishers, literary dabblers and a rather large gallery of miscreants".
"He did a huge amount in support of Patrick, in promulgating his poetry, in making sure it appeared at all," said Macdara Woods, a poet and friend of Patrick Kavanagh's. He added: "Peter published a huge amount about Patrick" - including PK, Man and Poet; November Haggard, uncollected prose and verse; The Sacred Keeper, a biography of the poet; Lapped Furrows, a book of correspondence between the two brothers; and Patrick Kavanagh 1904-1967, A Life Chronicle, a biography he published in 2000. "He believed he had a particular duty and obligation, from God as it were, to be the keeper of the flame."