 | Francis Ledwidge - A Life of the Poet
Although he died at twenty seven, having lived to see only one volume of his poems in print, today - eighty years after his death - the life of the Irish poet Francis Ledwidge continues to fascinate successive generations of readers.
Born in Slane, Co. Meath in 1887, Ledwidge endured a childhood of ferocious hardship, before leaving school at fourteen to work as a farm labourer, copper miner, road-worker and union organiser. Throughout this time he was producing an extraordinary body of exquisite lyric poetry.
He burst onto the literary scene just before the First World War, in which, although a devoted and active Irish nationalist, he as killed in Flanders in the uniform of the British army. This dichotomy led to decades of suspicion and neglect in some quarters before Alice Curtayne published her acclaimed biography of the poet in 1972.
Detailing the remarkable life, loves and tragic death of a gifted Irish poet, this classic biography - back in print after twenty years - offers a memorable insight into the live and politics of Ireland at the start of this century.
About the author
Born in 1901, Alice Curtayne was both a novelist and historian, who wrote studies of Patrick Sarsfield and Oliver Plunkett among others. It is however for collecting and preserving so much of the poetry of Francis Ledwidge that she is most remembered and cherished today. Married to author Stephen Rynne, she died in 1981.
Price: €15.00 |
