THE Good Sisters Believe They Have Already Paid Their Dues

By Gerard O'regan
Irish Independent
July 21, 2013

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gerard-oregan/the-good-sisters-believe-they-have-already-paid-their-dues-29434986.html

They were an unlikely duo to put it mildly – the alcoholic vagabond poet Patrick Kavanagh, and the austere, uncompromising, religious dictator of his time, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid.

And what brought them together was money.

Kavanagh famously abandoned the "stony grey soil of Monaghan'' for what would prove to be a lifetime of relative poverty in the much documented 1950s' Dublin literary scene.

But as he weaved those wonderful lines of poetry, which strike a chord with so many, he also indulged too many booze-filled evenings in the likes of McDaid's, the Bailey, and the Palace bar. It meant his already precarious lifestyle, all too often, plummeted into the depths of abject poverty.

Meanwhile, up the road in Drumcondra, in the plush surroundings of what was termed his 'Bishop's Palace', Archbishop McQuaid kept a beady eye on Kavanagh. The archbishop, of course, had his "vigilantes'' scouring the capital for any kind of tittle-tattle, which would inform him of "immoral tendencies'' by Catholics in positions of power or influence.

Kavanagh's artistic coterie – producing their poems, novels and plays – were more of an irritant to the archbishop than anything else. He was far more concerned that the interests of the Catholic Church, should be strictly monitored in areas such as government, education, health, media and the law.

He was determined to keep the so-called movers and shakers in Irish society within a vice-like grip, which would ensure the moral compass of the nation, as he saw it, remained firmly on track

So why did he bother at all with the irascible, frequently hungover, poet from Inniskeen in deepest Co Monaghan? But bother he did – especially when it came to matters of hard cash.

It seems the archbishop, on various occasions, gave the poet what in modern-day parlance would be described as a "bit of a digout'', particularly on occasions such as Christmas. He even tried to fix him up with some work on the 'Catholic Standard' newspaper.

The biographies of both men remain vague as to what prompted the archbishop – notorious for his harsh, judgmental, and unforgiving view of the world – to be so concerned about Kavanagh and cash.