SOURCE: “Religious Themes in the Work of Patrick Kavanagh: Hints of a Celtic Tradition,” in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 82, No. 327, Autumn, 1993, pp. 257–64.

In the extract below, Agnew highlights the Christian and non-Christian religious content evident in some of Kavanagh's poems.

Introduction: Awareness of Ancient Roots

Patrick Kavanagh was aware that the remnants of an ancient culture lurked in the landscape of south-east Ulster. ‘The ghost of a culture’ he says wistfully, ‘haunted the snub-nosed hills’. The drumlins of south Monaghan were his Alps; they provided him with prehistoric vision. From their summits he saw ‘gaps of ancient Ireland sweeping in again with all its unbaptised beauty’. ‘From the tops of the little hills there spread a view right back to the days of St. Patrick and the druids. Slieve Gullion to the north fifteen miles distant, to the west the bewitched hills and forths of Dunamoyne...