Cromwell

Buffún is wracked by the living nightmare of Irish history. His torments are surreal but no less frightening than the awful truth. When Oliver Cromwell turns up, the hapless buffoon can't cope. This Cromwell is a cocky tyrant who wants to run a football team, or start a taxi business. Enter the Belly, the IRA, an Irish giant, and Billy of the Boyne: 'William of Orange is polishing pianos / In convents and other delicate territories, / His nose purple from sipping turpentine.' Kennelly's Cromwell delighted and scandalised readers in Ireland when it was first published by a small Dublin press in 1983. This extraordinary, extravagantly Irish act of revenge has retained its power to shock.

Brendan Kennelly (1936-2021) was one of Ireland’s most distinguished and best loved poets, as well as a renowned teacher and cultural commentator. Born in Ballylongford, Co. Kerry, he was Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College, Dublin for over 30 years, and retired from teaching in 2005. He published more than 30 books of poetry, including Familiar Strangers: New & Selected Poems 1960-2004 (2004), which includes the whole of his book-length poem The Man Made of Rain (1998). He was best-known for two controversial poetry books, Cromwell, published in Ireland in 1983 and in Britain by Bloodaxe in 1987, and his epic poem The Book of Judas (1991), which topped the Irish bestsellers list: a shorter version was published by Bloodaxe in 2002 as The Little Book of Judas. His third epic, Poetry My Arse (1995), did much to outdo these in notoriety. All these remain available separately from Bloodaxe, along with his more recent titles: Glimpses (2001), Martial Art (2003), Now (2006), Reservoir Voices (2009), The Essential Brendan Kennelly: Selected Poems, edited by Terence Brown and Michael Longley, with audio CD (2011), and Guff (2013). His Journey into Joy: Selected Prose, edited by Åke Persson, was published by Bloodaxe in 1994, along with Dark Fathers into Light, a critical anthology on his work edited by Richard Pine. John McDonagh’s critical study Brendan Kennelly: A Host of Ghosts was published in The Liffey Press’s Contemporary Irish Writers series in 2004. His anthology The Heavy Bear Who Goes with Me – co-edited with Neil Astley – is published by Bloodaxe in 2022.