50th anniversary of Patrick Kavanagh's death: ‘And you smile up at us eternally’

They commemorated him in fine style, not near the stilly, greeny waters of the Grand Canal, but by his graveside, deep in the landscape he immortalised.

A formidable line-up of writers and poets gathered at the former St Mary’s Church graveyard in Inniskeen to pay tribute to Patrick Kavanagh, a man attuned to the beauty of the commonplace.

On the 50th anniversary of his death, they paid him the ultimate tribute, reading from his works in his birthplace, Inniskeen, Co Monaghan. Poet Caitríona Ní Chléirchín, also from Monaghan, read In Memory Of My Mother, with the befitting final line “And you smile up at us eternally”.