Acknowledgements

The author and publisher would like to acknowledge the following: BBC Radio, Carcanet Press, Critical Inquiry, Education Times, the Guardian, Hibernia, Honest Ulsterman, the Irish Times, the Listener, Penguin Books, Proceedings of the British Academy, Radio Telefís Eireann, Threshold and The Times Literary Supplement.

Acknowledgements are also due to André Deutsch Ltd for permission to quote from Mercian Hymns (1975) by Geoffrey Hill; and to Mrs Katherine B. Kavanagh and Martin Brian & O’Keeffe Ltd for permission to quote from Patrick Kavanagh’s poems.