Bishop Brendan Comiskey will deliver the eulogy today at the funeral of Dr Peter Kavanagh, brother of poet Patrick Kavanagh, at Inniskeen Co Monaghan. Mr Kavanagh died in New York on January 27th last.
Dr Comiskey, former bishop of Ferns, is from Co Monaghan and has been a friend of the Kavanagh family for some time. He has frequently quoted Patrick Kavanagh's poetry in sermons and commentaries.
Dr Kavanagh was a writer, academic and lifelong champion of his brother's work. Describing himself as the "sacred keeper of his brother's sacred conscience", he provided support for Patrick to get his literary career off the ground and wrote two biographies about him "as a partisan, as his alter ego, almost as his evangelist". He also became involved in a lengthy legal wrangle over the copyright to Patrick's work.
Later, he took exception to the burial of his brother's widow, Katherine, in her husband's grave.
The brothers lived together in Dublin during the early 1940s before Peter, who held a Ph.D from Trinity College, left for the US in 1946 to take up the position as professor of poetry at Loyola University in Chicago. After Patrick's death in 1967 he gave up teaching to publish a series of books on his brother's life.
His cremated remains, placed in a coffin, will be taken from the family home at Mucker, near Inniskeen, at 1.30pm, arriving at Mary, Mother of Mercy Church, Inishkeen, at 2pm. Chief mourners will be Dr Kavanagh's widow, Ann Keeley, and their daughters, Keelin and Caomh.
