It is good to return to old friends and after 3 years away from this thread to meet Desi who I have met in the real, touchy smelly world since writing here.

I had never thought of this in any allegorical sense but I could see that Kavanagh might see his experience or at least his view of that as having parallels with the state of the State: he was a man of no small ego. This does not diminish my reading of he closing lines as suggesting he sees himself, the angel, falling for falling for a lesser soul.