In this centenary year of Patrick Kavanagh, many people will visit the poet's commemorative seat by the south shore of the Grand Canal in Dublin, close to the corner where one of his favourite haunts, Parson's Bookshop, used to stand. Not a few may be perplexed to find that 1905, instead of 1904, is inscribed there as the year of the great man's birth.
It was Kavanagh himself who submitted 1905 to the publishers of Who's Who in 1966.
His brother Peter rightly maintained that 1904 was the correct year. The 1905 error was accepted as official, however, by Patrick's Dublin literary friends, headed by John Ryan and Dennis O'Dwyer, who erected the seat to his memory in 1968. (A second seat, bearing a live-sized sculpture of the great man, and inscribed "1904 to 1967", was erected on the other side of the canal in 1991.).
By now, most people have accepted that 1904 is correct, but a decision on the exact day in October is much more complex.
Three dates vie for the honour of being the poet's birthday: October 21st, 22nd and 23rd - each with a legitimate claim. October 21st is inscribed, supposedly by James Kavanagh, father of the family, in the Family Record Book. October 22nd was entered in the Inniskeen Baptismal Register by Father James O'Daly. And October 23rd has been given official status on Kavanagh's birth certificate.
An examination of each date reveals the difficulties surrounding the task of selecting the correct one.
The Kavanagh household kept an all-purpose Accounts and Records ledger, which has come to be called the Family Record Book or Cobbler's Account Book. This record is written in a bold hand, and in the same shade of blue-black ink used by Patrick in entries dated 1927.
It is a continuous piece, as opposed to separate entries made at different times. Beginning with the marriage of James Kavanagh and Brigid Quinn in 1897, it covers the births of 10 children in correct chronological order, ending with the youngest child, Peter. It may be a copy of older, faded entries and although the ink is similar to what Patrick used, the handwriting is more ornate than Patrick's, with flourishes inconsistent with the poet's style. If this is a copied record, then it is possible that an error occurred in the copying.
The entry for Patrick has no greater or lesser detail than those for his siblings: "Patrick, Joseph Kavanagh born 21st October 1904 at 45 minutes past eight on Sunday night in fine weather. Sponsors: John Mc Caffrey and Mary McCaffrey."
These records show remarkable accuracy as to day, date and time of birth, the current weather conditions, sponsors, and in some cases, the name of the priest who baptised the child. Yet, in the instance of Patrick's birth, there is a significant error in that October 21st, 1904 was not Sunday but Friday. How this error occurred in otherwise impeccable records is a matter of conjecture. It may have been due to excitement at the birth of the family's first son, a rapid change into Sunday clothes, or even by the fact that Sunday was Brigid Kavanagh's preferred day for giving birth! James may have assumed that their fourth child (Patrick) followed the pattern set by the first three: Annie and Mary, born on Sunday, and Sissie, in the small hours of Monday. Indeed, seven of their 10 children were born on Sunday or early Monday.
The baptismal register at Inniskeen, introduces a second anomaly by giving October 22nd as the date of birth and October 23rd as that of the baptism. It was normal practice in those days to have an infant baptised on either the day of the birth or the day after. This practice was followed for all the Kavanagh children except Cecelia and Peter, who were baptised on the third day after birth. What might discredit the baptismal record in Patrick's case is that at least 10 births were entered, all at the one time, into the register in Father James O'Daly's hand. A clerical error could have occurred.
A third anomaly occurs in the Official Births Register. On November 9th, 1904, James Kavanagh went to Carrickmacross to register his son's birth. He still held on to the memory of Sunday as the birthday, so the county registrar, Mr. P. McKenna, entered "October 23rd" as the official date of birth, following the information he was given. It was thus that Patrick Kavanagh unwittingly accumulated his third date of birth, confusing forever those who wished to read his stars.
Since no two records agree, but since baptism necessarily follows birth and rarely occurs after 8 p.m. (his time of birth), unless there was danger of death, it appears that the odds are stacked in favour of October 21st being the correct date.
Patrick himself kept October 21st as his birthday, despite the contradictory evidence on both his birth and baptismal certificates. His brother Peter has reverted to October 23rd in his most recent biography (published in 2000), although October 21st was inscribed by him on the poet's grave. There is no clear-cut resolution to the anomalies. Patrick's own take would probably be that, despite interference from official sources, October 21st wins out with "squatter's rights". The centenary will be celebrated in the National Concert Hall on October 21st, the day An Post issues its commemorative stamp.
October 22nd has disappeared as a possibility, while October 23rd will be celebrated in New York and in his home townland of Mucker, where a plaque will be unveiled in his honour. Once again there is the inevitable split in the ranks. With any luck there will be celebrations on all three dates, with a triple benediction borrowed from the poet's words.
"So be reposed and praise,
praise, praise,
For the way it happened
and the way it is."
(- Question to Life)
• Una Agnew is author of The Mystical Imagination of Patrick Kavanagh (The Columba Press, 1998). A fuller version of this article will appear in the Clogher Record 2004.