The Patrick Kavanagh Centre - a cultural hidden gem in the North East

Darren McCreesh, manager of The Patrick Kavanagh Centre in Inniskeen, just over the Louth border, spoke to the Dundalk Democrat earlier this year for our Louth Life magazine. This is the story that featured in the spring edition.

The Patrick Kavanagh Centre in Inniskeen is a cultural hidden gem of the North East, but centre manager, Darren McCreesh, believes that it is Inniskeen Village itself that is the hidden gem.

Inniskeen, situated on the Monaghan/Louth border and actually shares a Louth postcode, hasn't changed all that much from how it looked during Patrick Kavanagh's time. “We often say”, says Darren, “if Kavanagh came back today, he'd recognise the place. The look, the feel – it does feel like you're walking back in time. That time being the 40s and 50s in Ireland, pre Celtic Tiger, pre progress.”

The centre which commemorates Patrick Kavanagh's life and the poetry, and celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, is located in the old Inniskeen church, a 200 year old building that closed in the early 1970's.

“In my view it's at the leading edge of arts experiences in the country”, Darren reveals. “Its a new type of arts venue. There's only ourselves and the Museum of Literature Ireland (MOLI) in Dublin, where there's a commercial aspect to it but also the civic and cultural responsibility, and the educational potential as well.”

Darren continues, “to give a sense of what he have in here, we tell Patrick's story from his early years in Inniskeen through a series of touchscreens and display units and then his time in Dublin. Its all laid out biographically. Then when you go around the corner, you can hear the poems being recited. You can watch a short film, its only 15 minutes long, and ten of his most famous poems are recited.”

The centre when it originally opened, was developed by the Inniskeen Enterprise Development Group, but has since been taken over by Monaghan County Council, which has opened up opportunities. Along with providing an operating budget, there is the opportunity to seek funding from Creative Monaghan, the local arts office, as well as supports from Fáilte Ireland.

“We have a brand new website, we have a state of the art booking engine, which means we're fully digitally equipped to deal with the contemporary visitor”, Darren adds.

When Monaghan County Council took over the centre it decided to turn it into a multi functional space, which now can hold 200 people, and has expanded its cultural offerings. “We had Blindboy Boatclub back in September. We had Lisa O'Neill here was well, she's amazing. We try to celebrate culture, cutting edge contemporary Irish culture.”

With the extra funding available, Darren was able to bring back and expand the Patrick Kavanagh Festival, following Covid. “It was a multi venue festival, we took over the round tower church in the village as a venue space. “We had public talks and screenings. We had a screening of Baggotonia by Alan Gilsenan, we had a screening of Pat McCabe's The Holy Hour, followed by a public interview. We had a three panel discussion on emerging writers from the North, which included Scott McKendry.

“The weekend went brilliant, people were delighted, we had 1,500 people through the village, we had music sessions in the pub every night, and there was a lovely energy about the village.”

Darren goes on to talk about the unique culture and traditions of the Oriel region, including Monaghan, Dundalk and south Armagh.

“They're talking about UNESCO status for the Armagh Observatory, they should be looking for UNESCO status for the Oriel as a distinctive cultural region in the way that Connemara is. We do have our own songs, we have our own musical traditions – that's been popularised by the likes of The Mary Wallopers. Dundalk for me has always been a really fascinating town. It was always edgy, never looked fully to Dublin, never looked fully to Belfast.

“There was a little bit of commonality with northern English towns, that kind of industrial grime. All that lends itself to its own energy. You see it with Jinx Lennon – he's a complete once off. You see it with The Mary Wallopers, you see it with that whole wave of street art.”

He adds “the three leading modernists in Irish culture, Peter Rice, Paddy Kavanagh, and JJ Clarke (perhaps Ireland's first street photographer, who took street photography in the 1900s when he was a student in Dublin). Extraordinary photographs. But the three of them trace their roots back to Kilkerley and Inniskeen. It's completely nuts but there you go, one of those idiosyncratic facts of life.”

When it comes down to it however, what draws people to Inniskeen and Patrick Kavanagh, is the poetry. “If you strip everything away, in a thousand year's time what is going to be remembered is the poetry. This place will be gone. Kavanagh will be a distant memory as a man but the poems will live on. The art and the man, they're interlocked really.

“That's one of the great things about Kavanagh. There are great poets today. Heaney was a great poet, but there's something about Kavanagh's life and his story and the mythology that's grown up around it. When we talk about our earliest ancestors, we look at their cave drawings – that's the record of humanity, that's what's left behind. What will be left of Kavanagh in a thousand years time? The poetry.”