Brendan Kennelly: A ballad maker, first and last

The Irish literary genius and his art were born of that great Kerry triumvirate: football, politics, and religion

The recently deceased Brendan Kennelly in the bedroom of his house in Balylongford (Kennellys Bar) prior to a civic reception by Kerry County Council in his honour in 2017. File Photo: Domnick Walsh Photography

Brendan Kennelly was born in Ballylongford, County Kerry, on April 17, 1936, the son of Tim Kennelly, publican and garage proprietor, and his wife Bridie Ahern, a nurse. 

Ballylongford is a small village like the other villages in the hinterland of Listowel in north Kerry. To understand Kennelly and his poetry, you have to come to terms with the traditional culture of the area which Kennelly has translated into poetry, both intimate and epic. It’s flat land touching the River Shannon and the Atlantic. For the most part pasture land, it was, in Kennelly’s youth, mainly a farming community. The farmers, small farmers mostly, were generally not well off. But they loved to sing. At night they’d go to the local pub on bicycles or on foot (this was before the general availability of the car), drink ‘small ones’ (whiskey) and pints of Guinness, and swap stories, news, songs, and ‘recitations’.