His father James was a cobbler: not dirt poor but certainly not well off.

He didn't interview the Beatles. He denounced the cult of the Beatles but then declared him 'a Beatle fan'. He praised Ian Paisley, then a real bogeyman in the Republic. He liked to gain attention by saying outrageous things. He was certainly an awkward customer. Personally, I think his 'genius' is somewhat overated. But if his 'soul' and Yeats' technical poetical skills could have been combined, that would have been some poet!

Antoinette Quinn's biography 'Partick Kavanagh' (2001) is a fair, detailed and critical account of his life and work.