Just a quick note as I love Kavanagh and his poetry. They are specil to me.

As a very little boy we lived on Lower Baggott St. Dublin nor far from Raglan Road. We actually lived over a pub, and it was often frequented by Kavanagh and his peers of the time. I was too young to be allowed "downstairs" in the evening time when the pub would be busy but often, on the way home from school or when out for a walk I would see Patrick Kavanagh.

My father had pointed him out as someone special but it wasn't until many years later that I realised who this grumpy old man was. He always seemed so alone. I never rememer him in the company of others.

Later, when I began to have an interest in his writing and he was long dead I discovered that my childish instincts were very keen. He was a very lonely man and a very unhappy man. He loved women - but they did not love him. He had no social skills.

Raglan Road is a poem of unrequited love or even more accurately, hopeless infatuation. Kavanagh loved a lady who was another mans wife (a very prominent person too). He knew from the start that his love would not be returned but he couldn't help himself - he loved her from afar.

Frank