President Higgins pays tribute to renowned poet Thomas Kinsella

Thomas Kinsella has passed away aged 93. Picture: Archive

Thomas Kinsella, known for his works such as the Táin, has died aged 93.

President Michael D Higgins has paid tribute to Mr Kinsella, "one of Ireland's finest poets."

“His reputation at home and abroad was one of being of a school that sought an excellence that did not know borders.

In addition to his rich contribution to the school syllabus for generations of students, where he once held a rare distinction as being a living poet on the syllabus, Thomas Kinsella’s work retained a fierce urgency and relevance for readers throughout life. Not least his work tackling the gap between the aspirations of what Irish society should be and that which he saw before him. That ethical pursuit was attempted through rigorously honed lines.

"Thomas Kinsella, in addition to his own work, leaves a strong legacy in his translations from early Irish, most notably his collaboration with artist Louis le Brocquy on The Táin. That beautiful work came from a poet who valued and empathised with the Irish tradition.

"I had the great pleasure in being present for one of Thomas’s last public engagements, when we visited his old primary school Model School Inchicore in 2019, a place like so many in his native Dublin 8 that he immortalised in his work. 

He remained to the end a truly remarkable man with a special grace that I recall from that occasion.

"Sabina and I would like to offer our deepest sympathies to his family and Thomas Kinsella’s wide circle of friends at home and abroad," Mr Higgins said.

The poet who was born in Inchicore, Co Dublin in 1928, originally studied science at UCD and worked as a civil servant before he became a full-time academic and writer.

Mr Kinsella was poet in residence at Illinois University in the US and later, Professor of English at Temple University in Philadelphia.

The Táin was Kinsella's translation of the Irish prose epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, which was illustrated by artist Louis le Brocquy and published in 1969.

The poet was born in Inchicore, Co Dublin in 1928, and worked as a civil servant before he became a full-time academic and writer.

While generations of Leaving Cert students will remember Mr Kinsella for poems such as 'Mirror in February', another major work of Kinsella's was 'Butcher's Dozen', written in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday.

In 2008, he was awarded the UCD Ulysses Medal in recognition of his poetic works.

Tributes have poured in online fondly remembering the renowned Irish writer.

Thomas Kinsella is survived by his three children and grandchildren and was pre-deceased by his wife Eleanor.