SOURCE: “The Writings of Patrick Kavanagh,” in Dublin Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 3–4, Autumn, 1965, pp. 5–23.

Surveying Kavanagh's short verse, Sealy, in the following excerpt, maintains that Kavanagh suffered a creative drought in his later years.

Even before he appeared on TV Patrick Kavanagh was probably known by sight to many who had never read a line of his verse. The dishevelled clothes, the old mackintosh, the nondescript hat set back on the high forehead, the heavy horn-rimmed spectacles magnifying the eyes above the beak-like nose and hollow cheeks and the harsh mouth were a familiar sight along Pembroke Road and Baggot Street and in various Dublin pubs. He was, in Thomas Kinsella's words, ‘an outcast, Corvine figure embittered by disillusion, hugging the cold comfort of his honesty and craft.’ Whether in Dublin, in his native Monaghan, or on the savage streets of London, his figure was probably equally familiar and...