Dr Una Agnew, the author of The Mystical Imagination of Patrick Kavanagh, gave a fascinating insight into the life and works of the poet with her brother Art Agnew and Peter Murphy.

Kavanagh wrote of everyday Irish life and his best-known works include the poems On Raglan Road and The Great Hunger, and the novel Tarry Flynn.

One of ten children, Kavanagh was born in County Mongahan in 1904. He left school at 13, by which time he had already began writing poems. Ploughman was included in an anthology of the best poems of 1930 published in London.

Kavanagh settled in Dublin in 1939 and worked for the Irish Press newspaper and the Catholic journal The Standard, as well as writing fiction. From 1963 to his death he had a weekly column in the RTV (now RTÉ) Guide.

“Patrick Kavanagh: Inside out” was held at RTÉ in Dublin in early December.