The Kavanagh home at Mucker in Inishkeen, Co Monaghan is to remain in the family. Peter Kavanagh left it to his daughters Keelin and Caomh, in trust for his grandchildren.
As his son-in-law Alan Baer also explained at the graveside last Monday the family intend to do for Peter's own reputation what he did for that of his brother Patrick. Peter used to write almost daily from 5am and had left 20 years' worth of papers to be explored.
Alan, who had been with Peter (89) when he died at 6.20pm on January 27th last in New York's Mount Sinai hospital, remarked on the ordinariness of that departure.
"There was no chorus of angels . . .", he said, a hint of surprise in his voice.
Earlier at the house in Mucker, the coffin containing Peter's remains rested at ease across both end arms of a sofa in the front room before a massive open fireplace.
On the walls above him were drawings he had made of the house plan as he remembered it was in childhood.
Academic and poet Peter Kavanagh was also good with his hands. A printing press he made himself is on exhibit at the Kavanagh centre in Inishkeen. It is on loan from UCD.
Overlooking the scene in the front room was a picture of Patrick in short sleeves, with Peter's daughter Keelin, taken in New York in the 1960s. "He was with us six weeks then. He loved it in New York," explained Ann Keeley, Peter's wife of 42 years. "He's in there with his books in a shroud he bought . . . it must be 50 years ago," she said gesturing to the coffin where Peter's ashes were in an urn.
Getting the coffin outside was an exercise in vertical/horizontal management by Peter's two sons-in-law Alan and Rick (Cypher). Outside the front door it rested on portable wheels as mourners gathered for the last journey. Piper Patrick McCormack played the Dawning of the Day and Amazing Grace.
Family friend Fr Michael Sheerin led a decade of the rosary, assisted by Kavanagh relative Fr John Quinn.
Quoting "perhaps the greatest [ poet]" Shakespeare, Fr Sheering sent Peter off with the words "Fear no more the heat of the sun/nor the furious winter rages/thou thy earthly work has done . . ." So began the last journey of a man whose life had been dominated by "a pleasure [ poetry] which became a seraphic tyranny", as Bishop Brendan Comiskey quoted in the eulogy later. A man who above all else had loved "the dancing flame of the poet's imagination" in his brother Patrick.
