Today, Dublin honours two exceptionally gifted men of the arts and major figures in Ireland's cultural life - poet and translator Thomas Kinsella and artist Louis le Brocquy. Freedom of the City is never lightly bestowed and should be seen not only as acknowledgment of their achievements but as an expression of the city's pride in those achievements by two of its native sons.
Both men have, of course, distinguished themselves in the practice of their respective art forms, but it is particularly fitting that they are receiving this honour side by side since, together, they collaborated on one of the most acclaimed translations from the old Irish, The Táin- with Kinsella's translations accompanied by le Brocquy's series of brush drawings to illustrate the epic.
Le Brocquy is widely regarded as Ireland's leading artist of the 20th century, whose work is represented in prestigious international collections. Renowned in recent years for his series of Head Portraits- often of literary figures - his earlier paintings were an important modernising influence in Irish art. Only recently, he was the subject of much celebration to mark his 90th birthday and this honour is a long-deserved addition to the many accolades he has already received.
Kinsella has, in a sense, been the city's laureate for a long time. Dublin, and something of its spirit, has long been a preoccupation in his work. From early poems such as Baggot Street Desertaand Phoenix Park, to later sequences like The Pen Shopand From City Centre, the city and its place-names, especially those in the old areas of his childhood, have resonated in many of the great poems. He has, too, been the poet of outrage and prescient truth-telling, at what he regards as the despoliation of his city.
Tonight's civic occasion will have been well worthwhile if it focuses renewed attention towards Kinsella's poetry which, for too long has failed to receive the kind of recognition and readership it deserves. His contribution to the canon of contemporary Irish poetry has been immense and singular. He is a master of the poem in its various forms, the long narrative and the short and concise lyric.
His penetrating eye and philosophical inquiries have been attentive to the political and public life of his country as well as his own private tribulations. His translations have rescued from obscurity some of the finest poetry of the Gaelic tradition. If, as Pound said, "poets are the antennae of their age", then Kinsella has been a most rigorous and challenging inquirer into the value of our human endeavour.