Department of Special Collections and University Archives
McFarlin Library. University of Tulsa.  2933 E. 6th St.  Tulsa, OK.  74104-3123 (OKT - OkTU)

Ewart Milne papers

Collection 1984-009

Dates:  1949-1969.

Extent:  (3 boxes).

Level of Description:  Item level.

Name of crea tor(s):  Ewart Milne.

Date of creation:  Unknown.

Scope and Content:   The papers are arranged in to 2 series, Series 1:  Correspondence and Series 2:  Writings.

Series 1: Correspondence consists primarily of handwrittten and typed letters from Milne to Patrick “Paddy...."  Galvin.  The remaining Milne correspondence consists of letters from Milne to colleagues, reviewers, and publishers (Barbara Howard, John Montague, Denys Val Baker, Gordon Whar ton, Jon Wynne-Tyson) as well as carbon copy typed letters to various newspaper editors.  Other correspondence included in the papers consists of handwritten and typed letters between Patrick “Paddy...."  Galvin and colleagues, publishers, and editors, as well as drafts of his poems and a critical essay on Brendan Behan.

Series 2: Writings consists of handwritten, typed and carbon copy typed drafts of Milne’s poetry and prose.

Administrative/Biographical History: 

Access and Copyright:

Language and Scripts:  English.

Finding aid/Inven tory:

Provenance/Source of Acquisition:   The preponderance of the materials, including copies of six of Milne’s books of poetry were acquired from Bertram Rota Ltd., early 1980s.  The Milne-Howard letters were acquired from Bertram Rota Ltd., 1986.

Date(s) of description:   Caroline Swinson, 1986; rev. Milissa Burkart, Jan 1999.

Access Points:

Subject Headings 

 
Personal names 

Corporate names

Places
 

Inven tory

1:1

“Moonlight at the Cross Roads.”  Typed and signed draft with handwritten revisions, 6p.

Audience

 from from Patrick Galvin.  19 Nov 1958.  “May I submit the enclosed poem ‘The Cruel Place’ for publication...."   Typed and signed note with biographical blurb, 1s.

Cusack Productions, Cyril

to Patrick Galvin.  22 Jul 1960.  “By all means send me your play.  I cannot promise to read it immediatelyunless it catches my interest immediately...."  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  24 Jul 1960.  “You mention at the beginning of your letter that you ‘seem to have put your foot in it somewhere.’  I wouldn’t say so of your first letter...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

from Patrick Galvin.  25 Jul 1960.  “Thank you for your letter of July 24^th and for returning my play ‘Cry the Believers.  to say that I am as tonished at your Lord of the Manor attitude is to put it very mildly indeed...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

from Patrick Galvin.  27 Sept 1961.  “Thank you very much indeed for your most generous note indeed for your most generous note to me this morningI am aware of many defects which were present on the opening of the play...."   Typed and signed note, 1s.

Daily Worker 

from Patrick Galvin.  2 Jul 1957.  “Ewart Milne (Daily Worker, July 1^st) thinks British writers who have protested against the death sentences on two Hungarian writers ‘could find something better to do than encouraging the counter-revolutionary forces there’ ...."  Carbon copy typed letter, 1s.

Elegreba 

from Patrick Galvin.  16 Feb 1959.  “Here at last I am returning Childe Patrick and feeling guilty about not doing so before...."   Typed and signed note, 1s.

Galvin, Stella

to Patrick Galvin.  30 Jan 1960.  “Last bit of Anne D arrived safely.  I must say all the pics are extremely good.  Didn’t know the Evening Herald had it in it...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

from Patrick Galvin.  30 Jan 1965.  “This is purely to set the record quite straight.  If any letter of mine gives the impression that I now admit that you are the sole author of Irish Songs of Resistance, then the impression is a wrong one...."   Carbon copy typed letter, 2s.

Hall, Donald

from Patrick Galvin.  14 May.  “Thank you for Heart of Grace, which I am happy to have.  I already have Christ in London, from the New Statesman.  I am sorry to say that I didn’t like it...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

from Patrick Galvin.  18 May 1960.  “Thank you for your letter and for the copy of Christ in London.  I am sorry you found the book not quite to your liking, but I think you will get round to it in a few years time!”  Typescript marked “copy”, with handwritten note by Patrick Galvin at top, 1p.

Hewitt, John

from Patrick Galvin.  21 Jun 1958.  “I had expected to hear from you by now about our meeting to-morrow, but I expect you’ve forgotten all about it.  As to ‘Threshold’ - I have just been reading your article in the latest issue.  You are quite right, there is a lot I would quarrel with in it...."   Carbon copy typed letter, 3s.

from Patrick Galvin.  27 Jan 1959.  “I am glad to hear you’ve received a copy of PRISMATIC VOICES.  I think it’s a good anthology (well produced and each poet well represented), but I agree that the level of poetry is rather low...."   Carbon copy typed letter, 2s.

Iremonger, Valentin (Envoy)

to Patrick Galvin.  4 Jan 1950.  “Thank you so much for letting me see your poems.  I am glad to be able to inform you that I am using one of them in our next (February) issue.  ‘Evergreena’ is the one which I have chosen?  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  10 Mar 1950.  “I must apologize very profoundly for the fact that you did not receive a complimentary copy of Envoy I intend to use some more of your work from time to time...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

from Patrick Galvin.  18 Mar 1950.  “I am extremely pleased that you like my work and would like to see more of it.  I enclose one poem for possible publication...."   Typed and signed letter draft with handwritten revisions. 2s.

to Patrick Galvin.  23 Mar 1950.  “I owe you an explanation for the title Evergreena appearing after I had fussed about it...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

from Patrick Galvin.  21 Jul 1958.  “I enclose MSS which Paddy Galvin sent to me to see and send on to you...."   Typed and signed note, 1s.

Ireland, Bank of

to Patrick Galvin.  28 Apr 1950.  “AE Memorial Fund.  We are much obliged for your letter of the 23^rd instant.  The conditions relating to the forthcoming award are as stated in the published advertisement appearing in the press...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Irish-Democrat

from Patrick Galvin.  7 Mar 1953.  “I am gratified to find so much space in your column devoted to Chanticleer.  I would however point out that your reviewer’s statement that Chanticleer says it ‘will have not truck with ideologies’ is inaccurate...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

Irish P.E.N

from Patrick Galvin.  29 Mar 1964.  “I have just been reading John Wain’s letter on the continued imprisonment of Olga Ivinskaya (Pasternack’s friend) in to-day’s Observer.  And I was wondering whether Irish P.E.N. might take a hand in writing to the Union of Soviet writers...."   Carbon copy typed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  6 Apr 1964.  “I brought the matter before a meeting of my committee last Friday and we were all in full agreement with your views...."   Typed and signed note, 1s.

Irish Times  Editor

from Patrick Galvin.  21 Feb 1963.   “In the age of Communism, Socialism, welfare states, togetherness and crew-cut hair styles I have become obsessed with the problem of Identity...."   Carbon copy typed letter, 2s.

Krause, David

to Patrick Galvin.  28 Feb 1963.  “I want to tell you that I enjoyed reading your ironic and amusing letter in the Irish Times.  And I was further pleased to see your comment because it gave me a chance to locate your Dublin address so that I could write to you on another matter...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  8 Dec 1969.  “I am in the process of completing a three volume edition of the Letters of Sean O'Casey, and I wonder if I could ask you for your good help in this work...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

from Patrick Galvin.  10 Dec 1969.  “Thank you for your letter regarding the letters of Sean O’Casey.  I did have some correspondence with him in 1954 and 1955, but I am not sure now if any of his letters to me are still in existence...."   Typed and signed letter, 3s.

Lipton, Lawrence

to Patrick Galvin.  24 Jun 1954.  “Thank you for the copy of Chanticleer containing The Day They Crowned.  I have a special interest in this issue because of C. D. Lewis’ poem on Dylan Thomas...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

to Patrick Galvin.  7 Aug 1954.  “Thank you very much for the copies of Chanticleer and even more, for other reasons, for the copy of Radio Times in which they came wrapped.  I had never seen any detailed programs of the BBC before and never heard any at all, except the Bertrand Russell talks that our Columbia Broadcasting network put on last summer...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

The London Magazine (John Lehmann)

to Patrick Galvin.  26 Nov 1959.  “Thank you for your letter of the 23^rd.  I am sorry about Ewart Milne, but I didn’t ask any of my contribu tors to compile a catalogue (though one of them nearly did)”  Typed and signed note, 1s.

Lucie-Smith, Edward

to Patrick Galvin.  6 Aug 1958.  “Thank you very much indeed for your very kind and flattering letter.  It is most exciting to find that a poem has come over the way one meant it to...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.  Includes typed drafts of the poems “A Tropical Childhood,” “The Polo-Player,” “The Portrait,” “The Giant in the Tree,” “Address: to a Personal God,” “The Bonfire,” “Street Market Singer,” “A Memory,” “In the Morning,” all 1p each.

MacDonagh, Donagh

to Patrick Galvin.  9 Jan 1954.  “I am sure it is not impossible to get reading facilities at the British Museum Reading Room, especially if you explain to them that you are a research student of folklore material...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

to Patrick Galvin.  17 Jan 1954.  “I enclose the last copy of my little ballad book - it’s pretty beat up, but readable.  The gummed up pages conceal ‘The Three Coloured Ribbon’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  11 Oct 1954.  “A hurried note to thank for the three discs.  Best of them I think are ‘the Bonnet Boy,’ ‘The Brown Girl,’ and ‘She Moved Through the Fair’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  18 Oct 1954.  “I enclose a few suggestions for your proposed LP’s.  They’re all authentic and with good tunes...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s and type list of songs, with handwritten revisions, attached, 1p.

to Patrick Galvin.  18 Nov 1954.  “I finally brought your tapes in to the Folklore Commission people and played them over on their fine machine.  I liked best ‘Molly Ban’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  27 Nov 1954.  “Shelmalier is one of the many Baronies of Wexford and lies in the district around Castlebridge and Blackwater...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  1 Jan 1955.  “Your publishers were too efficient and sent the book to the Irish Times a day ahead of your letter, with the consequence that Seamus Kelly knocked it off...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  15 Feb 1955.  “Have you Com O’Lochlainn’s book?  If not let me know and I’ll get you a copy.  He has the following Drinking Songs...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  19 Feb 1955.  “The second verse of ‘The Famine Song’ should readI have arranged with Albert Healy to send you the tunes of ‘The Cruiskeen Lawn,’ ‘The Jug of Punch,’ and ‘The Famine Song’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  1 Jul 1955.  “My children, particularly my 11 year old son, are listening fascinated to your discs at the moment.  Damn good stuff...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  27 Nov 1955.  “Do excuse my unforgivable delay in thanking you for the last album of your ‘Rebel Songs’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  8 Dec 1955.  “Here are a few ballads picked at random from my files, which may be of interest to you.  I intend to do a large book myself, but at the moment the Oxford Book of Irish Verse is taking up most of my spare time...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  17 Dec 1955.  “What I suspected happened with regard to the Irish Times - the WMA had already sent a copy of your book before I wrote to you; I asked the features editor about Seamus Kelly’s review last night and he said he would get on to him about it...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  13 Jan 1956.  “Did you see Seamus Kelly’s ‘Quidnunc’”  Typed and signed letter fragment, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.17 Jan 1956.  “I thought you might like to have this script for your files.  I didn’t get the letter to Albert Healy as yet...."   Typed and signed note, 1s.

Irish Songs of Resistance by Patrick Galvin.  Introduced by Donagh MacDonagh.”  Carbon copy typed introduction with handwritten revisions, 6p; typescript of same, with further handwritten revisions, 6p.

to Patrick Galvin.  16 Feb 1956.  “The Cus toms people held up your Drinking Songs so that I have only now got it, and excellent it is, the best you have done so far I think.  I will ask Radio Eireann to use it for a broadcast...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

“Irish Drinking Songs and Irish Love Songs by Patrick Galvin.  Introduced by Donagh MacDonagh.”  Carbon copy typescript with handwritten revisions, 5p.

to Patrick Galvin.  14 Mar 1956.  “This review should be in The Irish Press on Saturday week, all being well.  In case the price of ‘Resistance’ has been increased for later editions please let me know immediately and I will tell the PRESS...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  23 Jun 1956.  “My apologies for not sooner acknowledging the Love Songs and the Australian ballads, but I have been waiting until I had some news for your about Radio Eireann and the Drinking Songs...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  3 Jul 1956.  “I enclose the script for my introduction to your recordings on 13, July at 11p.m.  I hope you will be able to hear it.  If you’re doing any further songs with Irish words in them it would be a good idea to check on pronunciation with someone who knows Irish...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Patrick Galvin.  6 Nov 1956.  “Your records, for which many thanks, arrived while I was away at the Wexford Festival and I have not had time to play them over yet...."   Typed and signed note, 1s.

“The Ballad of Jane Shore.”  pc of original poem with illustration by Eric Pat ton.  Christmas 1954.  (See on-line catalogue for record of original print)

Mackey, Herbert O

to Patrick Galvin.  28 Dec 1959.  “May I congratulate you on your very excellent pamphlet ‘I Accuse’?  My friend Ewart Milne sent me a copy of it recently and I must say I find it most convincing.  How anybody can doubt the innocence of Roger Casement baffles me...."   Handwritten draft letter, 1s; typed and signed letter, 1s.

Poetry Editor

from Patrick Galvin.  20 Sept 1958.  “I have just read Mr. David Wright’s review of my book Heart of Grace and I write to congratulate him on the title of his own work ‘Monologue of a Deaf Man’”  Typed letter, 1s.

Ramsay, Margaret

from Patrick Galvin.  21 May 1964.  “Thank you for your letter of May 29^th.  ‘Night Fall to Shannon’ is not ‘loosely put together’.  It is so tightly put together that I sometimes fear it may burst at the seams...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Scorpion Press, The (John Rolph)

to Patrick Galvin.  15 Jul 1959.  “Thanks for your letter of yesterday.  A pity, but never mind.   As a publisher - albeit a novice - I am already resigned to authors not reading their Agreements...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Sunday Independent (Editor)

to Patrick Galvin.  30 Sept 1962.  “I have no with to quarrel with Mr. O’Connor’s review of my play.  He is perfectly entitled to raise his moral hands in horror, if it gives him any satisfaction.  But I would like to take this opportunity to state a few home truths...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s; Carbon copy typed letter of same, 2s.

Thornton, [?]

to Patrick Galvin.  29 Nov 1950.  “Mr. Fitzgerald has been kind enough to let me read your letter and to invite me to reply to it.  Your letter is an interesting one in many ways but, I do not altogether follow your meaning...."   Carbon copy typed letter, 2s.

Vosper, Margery  from Patrick Galvin.  17 May 1962.  “I am baffled by your reaction to ‘The Sound of Noon’.  Didn’t the play mean anything to you at all?  You main criticism would appear to be that there is far too much talk and not enough action...."   Carbon copy typed letter, 2s.

Editor [?]  from Patrick Galvin.  25 Nov 1964.  “Thank you for the copy of ‘Censorship’ which I have read with great interest.  I was particularly interested in your article on censorship in Ireland as I have been living there for the past five years...."   Typed and signed letter, 4s.

19 Dec 1964.  [Another version of the previous letter.] Carbon copy typed letter, 5s.

Sir [?]  from Patrick Galvin.  1 Sept 1952.  “I wonder whether the writer of the article ‘Irish Tradition and Transition’ in your issue of August 29^th, who finds that my work ‘suggests surrealist influence’, or another of your contributors, would explain to me in what sense he uses the term ‘surrealist’”Carbon copy typed letter, 1s.

Unidentified

No date.  “I am writing this because although I have already chosen the 12 people for publication in this series I am hoping that I may be able to go on with the scheme next year...."   Handwritten and signed letter fragment, 1s.

1:4

“Babs in Um Woods.”  Typed poem, 4p, originally sent  to Ewart and Thelma Milne for Christmas, No date.

“The Ballad of Irish Writers.”  Page proof with corrections.

“Can Mr. Behan be serious?  His ‘review’ is no more than an indication of how he would have tackled the subject...."   Carbon copy typed reply, with handwritten revisions, to Brendan Behan’s review of Irish Songs of Resistance, 3p.  Carbon coy typed transcription of Behans review attached.

“Childe Patrick.  Story of a Genius...."   Typed poem, 5p.  11 Dec 1956.  Carbon copy typed and signed draft, another version, with handwritten revisions, 5p.

“The Cruel Place.”  Typed and signed poem, 4p.

“J. M. Synge.”  Typed article in two versions, with handwritten revisions and additions, 10p and 15p.

“The Old Country.”  Typed poem, with handwritten revisions and notations, 4p.  circa 1950.

“Story of My Father.”  Typed poem, with handwritten revisions, 8p.  circa Jun 1951.

Unidentified poems, not Galvin’s, 2p.

1:5

Hartley, George

from Ewart Milne.  No date.  “Thank you for this second number of Listen.  It is so much better - in format, printing, and in every possible way - than your first number that there is really no point of comparison at all...."   Typed and signed transcription of original, 2s.

Hewitt, John

from Ewart Milne.  17 Jul 1958.  “I hope you haven’t changed your mind about sending me a poem.  I’ve been looking forward eagerly for every post...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

Hibernia  (Editor)

from Ewart Milne.  circa Jun 1962.  “With you permission I should like to comment on some aspects of John Jordan’s review of my Selected poems, A Garland for the Green, in your Jun 1962 number of Hibernia...."   Carbon copy typed letter, 4s.

Howard, Betty

to Betty Howard.  11 Aug 1964.  “These tranquilizers are troubling me more and more, and I don’t think I am going to continue them.  They create a kind of passive acceptance and that itself is to me a form of death.  But then living here in Ireland is a form of death to me nowAnd yet I cannot leave, I must stay because this is Thelma’s home as well as mine, and she wishes to come back here...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Betty Howard.  No date.  “How shall I write to you out of the midst of this torment - and I mean ‘ torment’ only in relation to Thelma’s condition now and ‘the family’ disapproval of meI am supposed just to hang on the Dublin end of the telephone until told that my wife has gone and I’d better come over and bury herI wish you could go over to Dublin, or come over with the boys and myselfand be housekeeper for them at Terenure Rd...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

to Betty Howard.  26 Aug 1964.  “Yes, I do know something of the work you are doing.  And I did know you couldn’t come to Dublin.  But in any case the boys are with me here now, and will be with me - and round the corner from their mother - until school opens...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

to Betty Howard.  No date.  “This is absolute nonsense you know.  Lovers have died in each other’s arms before now, rather than live without each other, and no one has questioned itIf I cannot help my love to live, must I be forbidden also to help her to die...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Betty Howard.  No date.  “Please keep this safe for me, BettyThe top copy, the mss, is wandering about with publishers and goodness knows where it will end.”  Handwritten and signed note, 1s.

to Betty Howard.  18 Apr 1966.  “A voice from your (recent) past.  Would you do me a last favour and destroy that manuscript of poems I asked you to “mind...."  for me, during my most anguished days of my beloved’s illness...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Betty Howard.  17 May 1966.  “I have been quite withdrawn from all social and public literary activity since Thelma died, when the Harrogate Festival of Arts people asked me to give a reading of poetry in August.  Thelma left me two things to donot just one.  Not just the job of looking after the boys.  She left me a story of deceit and betrayal - of her love and generosity towards someone who had batttened on her and deceived me and her, someone who passed himself off as my friend...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

to Betty Howard.  22 Sept 1966.  “Thank you so muchfor sending over that manuscript.  The editor of Hibernia here wants a farewell poem or so from me - and the manuscript contains one or two which may suit...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

1:6

Galvin, Patrick  (All letters to Patrick Galvin unless otherwise indicated.)

 1949

17 Aug.  “Thelma and myself would like to invite you down any week-end when Stella is otherwise engaged...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

7 Sept.  “I seem to have given you a wrong impression ‘anent’ my remarks on the writing and publication of poetry...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

14 Sept.  “I like your comments on my fragment - for it is no more than a fragment - ‘The Keys.’  But I do not identify ‘the old woman,’ mother Ireland, or the people of Ireland, with the present regime and present system of operating in Ireland...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

15 Oct.  “I find your poem ‘The Woman at the Door’ a great advance on anything of your I have hither to seen...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

19 Oct.  “I like these three poems so much I don’t want to send them back to you.  As far as I am concerned you are hereby admitted in to my gallery of poets...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

10 Nov.  “I doubt if there is much work around here, certainly not in the fac tory where some of the men have been laid off...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

25 Nov.  “I’m very glad to hear Marcus took ‘The Old House’ for publication...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

28 Nov.  “What would you want me to say about this poem ‘The Narrow Street’ now called - and rightly - ‘Seeds of Destruction’?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

5 Dec.  “You are not going to waste your time writing for a dying class.  Good.  I agree with that.  But to whom are you referring?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s

circa late Dec.  “Thelma and myself have both read your ‘Christmust’ story several times and laughed over it as often...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Sunday.  “This is just a note to add to my letter - to say I’d like to see your ‘Evergreena’ if you’d care to send me a copy...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

1:7

Galvin, Patrick (cont'd)

1950

2 Jan.  “When I sent ‘A Song of the Dawn’ - and it’s ‘A Song Before Dawn’ by the way - I had only made one or two corrections from the draft of last October when it was written and put aside as unfinished...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

2 Jan.  “When I read your poem ‘Dream of the Artist’ it didn’t strike me as being about Joyce or on Joyce.  Although Stella had said she thought it was on Jamser I could see little connection...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

8 Jan.  “With one bound you have reached a position I have not yet attained and am unlikely to attain - to wit, publication in Envoy.  I don’t see why Iremonger wanted your title ‘Evergreena’ changed...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

11 Jan.  “I’ve so much work at the moment that its impossible to give the time which these poems of yours deserveI like all three.  Particularly the two new poems, ‘The Visitor’, and ‘Old Night’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

15 Jan.  “No time to write but thanks for Poetry (Australia).  There is one thing I don’t like in poetry or prose and that is self-pity...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

17 Jan.  “Godhelpus it’s the seventeenth of JanIt’s pretty certain your poem (‘The Old House’, isn’t it?  See what a good memory I have) is in the next number of Poetry Ireland along with ‘Anna Livia’s Country’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

27 Jan.  “As for the professional advice I only wish I could have given some of it to myself years ago, or that I’d had someone to give it to me.  For example I wish someone had told me, and urged me, to concentrate on breaking into the American magazines...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

5 Feb.  “This is to wish you luck if you send out a collection of your poems to a publisher...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

6 Feb.  “I’ve just got my Envoy this morning and I’d like to say that your poem ‘Evergreena’ reads and looks very well indeed.  Confronted by such a poem, I feel very humble...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

14 Feb.  “I’d like to say I think your poem ‘Cork City’ is very good indeed.  It’s quite true it might be difficult to find an editor who would publish it, and there it is that the advantage of a book of poems beginsAnyway, it’s a very good poem, and I’m honoured that you dedicated it to me...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

26 Feb.  “My correspondence has piled up terribly over the past week - I simply haven’t opened my typer or taken a pen in hand.  But domestic issues are getting straightened out and the stresses and strains are ebbing away...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

3 Mar.  “For the record - the last stanza of my poem therein refers to Mao Ze Tung’s [sic] poem ‘The Snow’, and though I put it in the form of a question, ‘The Giant’ that in fact has laughed at the snow is the Chinese Red Army.  But here - ‘the snow’ seems to me to be piling up still, thick and fast, until everyone and everything (except an ineffectual minority) is actually part of it...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

11 Mar.  “ To begin with I went back and read your poem ‘Blessed Are the Poor’ and the letter that went - or rather came - with it.  It’s a strong and good piece of writing, but - to me - the trouble is it has already been said...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

16 Mar.  “I like ‘Mary Ireland’s Prayer’ very much.  It seems to me one of the most successful of your poems so far...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

20 Mar.  “Val Iremonger’s letter to you certainly will have cleared up a worry in your mind - made more worrying, without doubt, by my gloomy remarks on my own case - and so all’s well that ends well.  But may I give you one tip: don’t write into editors, as a rule, anyway, even when they seem to have kept your work beyond all limits...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

22 Mar.  “I’m sending you here ‘On a Distant Prospect of Parnell’s Statue.’  You may find it interesting.  I don’t think there’s anything in it to baffle you, except perhaps the reference to ‘statue music...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

23 Mar.  “I would like to say a word about my forthcoming poem ‘Harvest’ in Envoy.  You may remember I read some of my recent work to you when you were down here last.  This particular piece Stella shook her head at, and you said it read better than it spoke...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

27 Mar.  “I’m very concerned about that missing poem of yours ‘Mary Ireland’s Prayer’.  I’m quite sure I sent it back to you...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

31 Mar.  “I’ve no time at all to write now and am simply returning here Iremonger’s letters to you, with the comment that it seems to me a very genuine helpful letter...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s with excised advertisement for Golden Book of the Blessed Sacrament.

4 Apr.  “ To deal with a last point in your letter first - I’m damned if I know who the best modern poet is!  I hadn’t thought of myself crowned with the bays as yet!What I have noted is that the great prize winners don’t seem to get anywhere near Parnassus...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

13 Apr.  “Your letter is so much on the defensive, and quite unnecessarily soof course you, like any other poet setting out, will have to struggle for your place in the sun..."” Typed and signed letter, 1s.

17 Apr.  “You ask me ‘can I not divorce the man from his poetry?’.  That is what I did.  It is what I insist on, always.  I do not like or dislike poetry according to who wrote or writes it...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

24 Apr.  “Your letter’s a good one, and I’ve little comment on it.  I understand it all right, and I’m glad you mentioned that bit about ‘letting other people lay down the law’.  The thing I want, of course, is for you to lay down the law to me, and not to leave me to do it all.  If I’m left to do it - with anyone, never mind yourself - I begin to suspect the other fellow’s being cagey, which is the reverse of friendly...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

27 Apr.  “Thanks for the letter and poems.  I’ll read and give an opinion soon I hope.  On a first glance, and as a quick reaction I like ‘The Old Country’ a lot.  ‘Struggling to Awake’ is more difficult, and obviously requires study...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

28 Apr.  I wrote the other letter enclosed here yesterday - practically on reading yours and your poems quickly, but then decided not to send it until I’d read the poems again and might offer a more detailed criticism.  First, then, I like your handling of words, and the words you use.  This applies to all your poetry I’ve read...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

1 May.  “I shall be coming up to London on Thursday on business and to see Zuleika off to school...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

5 May.  “Just a note to say I’m sorry our drink didn’t materialize with your permission I’d like to dedicated the enclosed piece to you.  Not that it is about us, but while it is about something greater that us, it was suggested to me by the fact that I received several poems from you during a period when I was myself dumb and speechless...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

7 May.  “What a man wants to be is one thing; what he is frequently different.  I have always wanted to be a dramatist...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

8 May.  “Your letter this morning is so damn interesting that I have to answer one or two of its points right away(1) I entirely agree that the bone, the skeleton will tell the tale, where a jelly substance is no good.  And (2) path, to me as to you, is English.  There may be some significance in Yeats’s changing the last line of ‘Cathleen Ni Houlihan’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

14 May.  “I must thank you for Farren’s The Course of Irish Verse.  As to your poem ‘The Old Country’ which I return here, I most certainly like it better now.  That is, I like all the five line stanzas, but still wonder about the ‘broken fragments’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

17 May.  “Just a few lines to say I’m glad to hear your Arena and Poetry Ireland news.  You’re on the road fairly now.  It’s interesting to reflect that you’ve had far, far less struggle to get on it than I had...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

18 May.  “Will you give the enclosed poem to StellaIt is the kind of poem that must not be over-emphasized, understatement is its secret to simply and clarify!  to eliminate everything except the essential things! Ah well, I am still learning, and maybe that’s something...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

20 May.  “Many thanks for the copy of ‘The Old Country’I like ‘Heart of Grace’ and am inclined to agree with you that it is your most important poem so far...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

22 May.  “I think - I hope - that if someone had showed me my poem ‘Lazarus’, if someone else had written it, I would have had much the same reaction as yourself...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

24 May.  “I wrote to you yesterday but didn’t post it, and now this morning I’ve had your letter telling me that The World Review has accepted your poem ‘The Old Country’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

25 May.  “There are one or two things about your last letter on which I’d like to comment - for they trouble me - before this correspondence changes or is ended.  The first, and to me most important, concerns your idea of two fine poets, P. K. and myself, running neck and neck and yourself catching upThe race you run in had got not only P. K. but Austin Clarke, Robert Farren and a whole lot more...."  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

30 May.  “I think there’s a good deal of truth in your letter, and more than a good deal in your direct approachHowever I write now merely to say that I like your poem ‘The Story of Michael James O’Leary’ a great deal...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Galvin, Patrick

1950 (cont'd)

9 Jun.  “Thanks for the return of my poem ‘The Old Blind Player’I like your poem ‘The AmericasI like it a whole lot, in fact.  It makes me feel curious, I don’t know why...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

21 Jun.  “Since I wrote to you I’ve heard from the publishers that my book will be out in early JuneI’ve also heard from Peter Russell, the editor of Nine .  They have accepted a poem, ‘The Artificer’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

22 Jun.  “I’ll send you The Love Songs of Connaught in a few days - or when next I go down to BurnhamI’m glad you like my book...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

2 Jul.  “Many thanks for the letter and your poems three.  On first - and rapid - reading I like two of them very much: ‘Hanrahan’s Rock’ and - particularly - ‘The Statue’.  As for the Talbot's Press’s answer, I think you’d get a similar reply from any Irish publisher...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

11 Jul.  “I agree with your criticism of ‘Three Ghosts in a Balcony Scene’.  With the exception of the third stanza it has no strength about it...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

16 Jul.  “You’ve sent me so much material now that the inevitable has happened; that is, I feel quite unable to cope with it all.  The poems I return with the remark that while I like them all, particularly ‘The Statue’ and ‘The Symphony of Death’, I think they all require a good deal of working on...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

19 Jul.  “No time at all to write.  Here’s your copy of my book.  In return, would you write to me about it sometime?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

20 Jul.  “What am I to say now about this poem ‘Symphony of Death’?  Give yourself time in order to get over that dizziness which indeed I know so well, and then go back to it...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

26 Jul.  “’Symphony of Death’ is in my opinion now one of the best of your poems that I’ve readReading it, the thought crossed my mind (and I simply tell you as a point that may interest you) that it was perhaps before its time; that one day this would be published and hailed, but it would be rejected now, for the very reason that the people whom it attacked were in the high seats...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

2 Aug.  Thanks for letter.  Perhaps our long and frequent correspondence has had something to do with increasing the understanding between us...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

8 Aug.  “I was struck by one sentence used by an officer of the North Korean army, which I read in the D W [Daily Worker] ‘This giant is hollow’ he said.  It made me think of my poem...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

16 Aug.  “Thanks for The World Review.  Your poem looks - and reads - very well indeed.  I like the illustrations a lot; that’s what comes of having an Irishman for Editor!”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

2 Sept.  The World Review is certainly taking you up in a big way, and I’m glad of it.  As for the American poets, I’ve said over and over - though not perhaps to you - that the only poetry in English written today is being written by them...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

6 Sept.  “I’ve been reading Focus Five of Modern American Poetry until I’ve got mental indigestion.  What the hell they’re getting at still escapes me...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

11 Sept.  “Of course the making of poetry is intense excitementI entirely concur with your opinion of the American poets - and ours.  Your phrase ‘they (the Barkers etc.) think too much and have a woman when they’re bored’ precisely sums it up...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

13 Sept.  “I’ve already sent you my reply to Paddy Kavanagh’s ‘goings on’.  I sent it to the Irish Times, with some small alterations.  I know they will publish it, if they do, for the wrong reasons, but all the same I’m damned if I’m going to be lectured by P. K. just as he chooses...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

14 Sept.  “I like you poem ‘The Labourer’s Drinking Song’ a hell of a lot.  As to I its being published - it will need thinking about but I’m sure it can be done.  But you might not get away with prick!  Cock, yes, and possibly fanny, I’m not sure...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

17 Sept.  “I felt yesterday evening both at the Fair and after that there was something wrong today it has partly come clear to me.  For example I know now that what I should have said to those two waitresses[is] this:  ‘If you two girls don’t want war, and you quite obviously do not want war, then why did you allow your British lads to be sent to the other side of the world to kill Koreans, who had done them, and you, no harm whatever in the world?”  Typed and signed letter, 2s.

20 Sept.  “I think you’ve mistaken the import of my letter in at least two important particulars.  The first is, of course, that I said nothing at all about China sending troops to Korea, or the Soviet Union, sending theirs...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s with 1s handwitten postscript.

21 Sept.  “Perhaps this enclosed copy of ‘The Cold Spring’ will help to lift you, even for a few moments, from the welter and waste we’re all struggling in now...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

22 Sept.  “We seem to have worked the situation out - or perhaps it is just that I have worked it out at your expense - and I agree with you that the time and the moment is allI bought a copy of New China in the editorial of which it is stated that the Chinese people are fully aware that the fight of the Korean people is their fight, and that the whole Chinese nation has steeled itself to give aid...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

24 Sept.  “Here is the poem I said I was working on and would send you.  It was written in two drafts both of which were made before you sent me your poem ‘The Irish Love Seeker’”  Typed and signed letter, 2s.

28 Sept.  “I like your two poems ‘The Battle for Seoul’ and ‘We Hold These Truths’very much, particularly the latter.  As for ‘The Battle for Seoul’ I would say that while it expresses sentiments and an outlook [with] which I agree it doesn’t seem to me al together to sum up the situation...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

No date.  “I don’t know if you’ve seen this month’s Envoy, yet.  If you have the enclosed piece may entertain you...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

9 Oct.  “I’ve just got my copy of Poetry Ireland No 11 and, supposing that you have got yours, I write to say I think it’s a very good numberI like particularly your poem ‘The House in Innis’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

12 Oct.  “I didn’t mention ’Riddle Me That’ because its effect on me was like that described by Sidney Keyes in his Timoshenko: Then in a rage of love and grief and pity/He made the pencilled map alive with warAll I could do was to think about ‘The Man in the Cocked Hat...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

16 Oct.  “Your criticism of ‘The Man with a Cocked Hat’ is exactly what I required, and I agree with it, and will alter it accordinglythe man I met meself [sic] on Windy Gap hard by the Military road was only a George III soldierwho told me he was sick of the Irish wars...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

21 Oct.  “I think you[r] feelings about ‘The Game is Done’, as published by The World Review, are very right and proper.  If you didn’t feel as you do, but just took the pay, then you’d be less a writer and artist, that’s allI think it a very fine statement.  It lives and breathes, and its very roughness is its living core...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

28 Oct.  “I’m also sending you my ‘partisan’ poem.  It was written a while ago, but then I put it asideI know you think poetry should deal with the present but I am raising no monuments, but only pointing out that the Fenians were among the first of the modern partisans, guerillas, and giving them the honour of it...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

31 Oct.  “I think I said on the phone all I need say about ‘The Connie Ribbon’ and Michael ogoff.  I’m surprised you find anything of Joyce in manner about ‘The Partisans of Time’”  Typed and signed letter, 3s.

1 Nov.  “Well now, I agree both with you and Stella about Times's Partisans.  (That’s the title all right).  That is, I agree with Stella it needs a hell of a lot of pruning and cutting back...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

8 Nov.  “Is Chicken Coop just a SQUIB?  I suppose it is, but to me it leaves something behind that is not just the ash of a firework.  By that I mean my reaction on reading it - with gus to and glee - was ‘ too bloody true, Mate!”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

20 Nov.  “I’m very glad to get a letter and some poems from you again, but by no means glad to hear you’ve been with the Doctors, and have to get an outside job.  Well, for an outside job there’s nothing like the land, unless it’s a deepwater boat...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

23 Nov.  “Well, you’re a hard man to please Mr. Galvin, but for all that my poem has got something of Shaw about it, something of his actual quality embedded in the poem, whereas any other poem I have seen since his death has been simply about what Shaw meant, or didn’t mean, what he was or wasn’t...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

28 Nov.  “I have read your poem ‘The Sinner Of Sorrows’ several times now, and I still think the poetry is of a high orderI find here, in short, and for the first time, that I am sharply at loggerheads with you.  I believe I understand what the poem says, its meaning, but I do not believe it, and do not therefore accept it.  And it follows from this that I must hope the people of this country will reject it too...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

1:9

Galvin, Patrick (cont'd)

1951

4 Jan to Stella.  “This is the poem I mentioned in my letter to Miss ? Kaufman.  I’d like you to read it and tell me what you think.  I wrote most of it years ago, but now have done what I can to finish it...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

5 Feb.  “Here’s that poem ‘Joe Reminiscent’ which you asked for, and also one other ‘The Line of Direction’ which  you may or may not like, but which I think is more important...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

7 Feb.  “As I’m in agreement with you about what you say of the film ‘Life Begins tomorrow’ I haven’t really much to add to it.  Somebody should call poker-faced Sartre’s bluff, though.   For no man - not even a Frenchman - could keep his face quite so straight without there being a great bluff somewhereAs for our old pal the superman - even H G Wells pointed the moral when, in The War of the Worlds, he left his Martians dying because they had no allowed for mother nature...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

17 Feb.  “Here is the other version of ‘Joe Reminiscent’The thing was it struck me I was wrong; that Joe would not make an end, he being what he was...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

19 Feb.  “It seems to me that your essay ‘The Finnegan Poems’ can stand very well without any introduction from me.  Further I would have to read and study Finnegan’s Wake itself before I could make any worthwhile contribution...."   Typed and signed letter, 3s.

22 Feb.  “I don’t know whether you’ll like the enclosed poem ‘And on a Summer’s Day’ or not.  I’d like your opinion if you’ve timeHowever, I’m writing to make one final suggestion about your ‘blurb’ for The Finnegan Poems...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

27 Feb.  “Patience, patience.  In a way you’re handicapped; and I know that [having] little Latin and less Greek is all very well for a Shakespeare, but cannot be vindication for lesser mortalsI think what is behind your feeling of lack is time, time lacking.  In other words you fear ‘something may happen’ before you have a chance to equip yourself.  That is above all what the Americans are doing to us; they are determined we shall not have time...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

4 Mar.  “I feel very bucked about Chanticleer.  I like the title page, and more, the editorial, enormously from what I know and the few things you’ve showed me, this is going to be a first class issue.  You’re doing fine, Galvin, I congratulate you...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

9 Apr.  “I haven’t had time to send you Asian Horizon.  But I enclose Envoy here insteadI must say it’s a queer mixture; but I only really object to Kavanagh - and the ‘Editorial’I’m very glad you are getting such encouragement from The lady of The Hand And Flower Press...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

12 Apr.  “It is possible that MacManus will write to me, of course, c/o my publishers, or like you, c/o Envoy.  But remember my position with Radio EireannI don’t see this as any reason whatever for you to say ‘No poems of mine unless Milne is included’.  It’s a bloody nice gesture to think of making and I appreciate it deeply...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Wed.  “About this Radio Eireann businessI have a good many mixed feelings about that.  One is curiosity.  I’m curious to know who they’ll include; who excludeI suppose another feeling is that I’d like to be included myself, and will be disappointed if I’m not...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

3 May.  “This is just a note to say I’ve really read your poem ‘The Twilight’ (I think the title should be ‘Madasha’) and think it a very fine pieceThe exciting thing to me about ‘Madasha’ - for so I think of this poem - is that it is the first clear note of optimism I can remember among all your poems...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

7 May.  “I’ve been wondering whether you fully understand what I was getting at with ‘Men of Asia’.  I wanted it to have its full force, that’s why I urged that the title should be read after my poem...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

16 May.  “Don’t know about you but I’m still flat as a pancake, at least my head is.  But bits of the reading, particularly your poems, keep coming back to me, in a very odd and dreamy sort of way...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

22 May.  “I’m sorry to hear ‘The Universe in Harness’ was only in the finals.  However, Thelma says what strikes her is that we are both damn good poets, or we’d never have got so far, with the material we handed in!”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

22 May.  “I imagine, but simply because you have not had your mss. Returned, that you may have won, or shared, the 300 line Festival Prize for Poetry...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

25 May.  “Well rimed, Mr. Galvin sir!  Well rimed!  But no blood, Mr. GavinLet the Mugs And Asses enjoy the Hellifant, enjoy your poem...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

25 May.  “Thanks for the Festival of Poetry Prize List!there’s going to be nothing that will set the Thames on fire.  Far from it.  Not a single name in the whole list  Don’t take any notice of me going off about ‘blood’ in The Mug and Asses...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

5 Jun.  “I don’t know whether you saw this specimen of a Prize Poem.  The fact that the man is blind ought not to blind anybody - the poem is blind too!”  Handwritten and signed letter, 1s with excised poem, ‘The Purple Flower’ by Theodore Nicholl, attached.

23 Jun.  “Here is a copy of ‘A Life Arboreal’ for you.  Structurally ‘A Life Arboreal’ seems to me an uneven poem.  But its development seems so natural that I don’t like to tinker with it...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

6 Jul.  “I hadn’t had time to read ‘The Mistress of the Copper Mountain’.  But last night late I read it again.  I like it very much indeedI don’t think it requires cutting or any alterationThere is something it lacksIt is as if it had been written at some distance, however slight, from the poet...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Sunday.  “I return Graham Ackroyd’s letter.  I imagine he is a painter though I don’t know why, but the name is familiar.  I agree with him entirely and then some - that you are a bloody good poet...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

Wednesday.  “Fine, fine!   You’ve passed a test Jem, although you may not know it.  I like Chicken Coop, I always did admire it and chuckle over it.  Tell Stella I’ve had a cordial note from Norman Arnold.  He says he’s very glad to hear I’ll read and do bring [along] more poems as they may ask poets to read more than once...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

18 Jul.  “I had something of a reaction against the Poets and Translators meeting yesterday; chiefly because I just can’t get on with Jack Lindsay.  There’s nothing at all wrong with a proposal to make an anthology of Soviet Poems in English in the best available translation...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

4 Sept.  “As for ‘The Bonehead Bards’, come off it, Jem, I liked it, and enjoyed it.  Of course as poetry it wants working on, but I was a damn good effort in a couple of hours work...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

10 Sept.  “Here’s the ballad.  I’ve changed it considerablyAs it was, there was a bit of the creeping despair in it, but I shook that off, and now I like it well enough.  It seems to me that all we can do, but its what we must do, is to turn from this insidious creeping despair...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

12 Sept.  “Here’s the poem ‘Land Of The Elders’ for youIt is - as a matter of interest - one of the few poems that was completely written in my mind before I wrote it down...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

12 Sept.  “The last line of ‘Land Of The Elders’ should read ‘Back, back to their vile green moral country’.  Would you correct it just in case you want to show the poem to anybody?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

20 Sept.  “What can I say in answer to your letter.  It requires no answer.  A statement of fact is unanswerable anywayThe choice for me at the moment is whether to water the roots or let them wither...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

14 Nov.  “Here’s the copy of The Hopkins Review.  The short stories are nightmarish, the poetry not good at all.  Though I think the whole thing a bit more solid somewhere than ‘Wake’ for example.  I like the print and the way my poems are set out...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

20 Nov.  “Well, I could hardly expect them to compare Yeats with me.  You and I may have our own ideas about Willie; but to the intelligentsia of the western world he is one of the three greatest poets of the twentieth century...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

28 Nov.  “You were right.  Fitzgerald likes my Galion and would like to publish itI’m enclosing an autographed copy of the Elegy for the Irishman.  Strange to think back to last year.  It seems to me, looking back, that both of us were ‘striding the heights’ then, where now we are just wandering about the lowlands if not the wastelands...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

2 Dec.  “Thelma said rather oddly I thought that she felt I ‘was a Catholic’ while writing the ‘Lament For The Rose’ - not meaning that I wrote as a believer, but that the poem’s whole imagery and outlook struck her as what she calls ‘Catholic’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

1:10

Galvin, Patrick (cont'd)

1952

2 Jan.  “Now I come to think of it - and before any mad correspondence begins - I don’t feel the latter part of your fine poem ‘South Side’ is all it might be.  The first part and the song, are fine.  But then - it seems to be the second and final part of the poem should be a development, or rather should develop more than it does...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

3 Jan.  “Would you or Stella give, send, or post the enclosed poems in envelope to Miss or Mrs. Kaufman.  The ‘Peace of Testament’ is in my opinion the best of this lot - but I’d personally like to have ‘The Lament for The Rose’ broadcast...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

9 Feb.  “I’m returning the Cummings book here in case you want it over the week end.  Both Thelma and myself have now read it and discussed it.  We do not think this Cummings is in any sense an important poet...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

18 Feb.  “I don’t think I made it clear that my personal opinion of Desmond Greaves is not particularly a high one.  But this has to do with his character, and not with his position as editor of the Irish Democrat...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

21 Feb.  “Desmond Greaves’s position as Editor of the Irish Democrat does not give him the right to advertise anybody as a public speaker without consultation and full permission...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

No date.   “I’m very glad you like Galion.   Went out but now here’s the final draft.  The thing was I knew I wanted an ending that would bring the poem right out of twilight and legend and up to date, but it was only last night the last few lines occurred to me...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

22 Feb.  “Believe it or not, my first letter to you after last week-end was written out of concern for your welfare; just as my note to Stella was written out of concern for hers.  I reared up at your telling me my letter was not as straightforward as it might have been...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

3 Mar.  “It’s uncanny how in some respects your experience follows what mine was in the years gone and not so far gone.  I came to a dead end with every dead end job within a year or a year and a half a year at the most...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

12 Mar.  “Your man Craig hasn’t replied to my suggestion that we should meet tomorrow (Thursday) at his pub.  Your man of The Dolmen Press wants to bring out Galion.”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

18 Mar.  “My book is finished and I’m sending it off today.  (Not that I put much weight on M. J...."    Typed and signed letter, 1s.

21 Mar.  “Literature of the Graveyard is a very troubling book to me, and I’m more than glad to read it.  I mean troubling in the sense that he makes me feel I am not living what I believe...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

24 Mar.  “Your man of The Dolmen Press wants to know whether there is a Dedication or a Foreword to Galion...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

25 Mar.  “Here’s Literature of the Graveyard.  I agree with Roger Garaudy about these gents entirely.  But he does seem to tail off at the end in to a discussion as to what is a good book...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s with typed quotation in French attached.

1 May.  “What you said last night about the ‘young writers’ having nothing fresh to say is probably trueYou, am I wrong, want to talk it out in order to clear your own mind.  That’s quite understandable, but you know I don’t think one does.  Or rather I don’t think I can help at all in that respect.  The positive value there has been between us lay in showing each other our respective poems...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

13 May.  “Thanks for sending me the Irish Times; I expect you sent it because of Austin Clarke’s review of the Penguin Comic and Curious Verse, didn’t you?  But what a lot of reading there is in it to talk of other matters, I liked the film ‘High Noon’ very much.  What I chiefly remembered about it next day was its beautifully evoked ‘Goodbye to All That’ atmosphere...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

1 Jun.  “The most beautiful think that a man can write is to write about absolutely nothing.  This is best accomplished in the very disciplining sonnet.  It takes fourteen striking lines and a large bottle of critic-gin...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

14 Jun.  “I want to be rather careful what poem of mine I submit for the next Chanticleer, and I don’t think the ‘Merry Ballad of Young Magrath’ is suitable in view of the Peter Russell article...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

27 Jun.  “I liked your poems - one in Poetry Ireland, and, particularly, one in Poetry Manchester, very much indeed.  All the best for Chanticleer.  I’m holding my fingers crossed for you...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

3 Jul.  “Here’s my sub.  I believe Thelma has posted hers, and something to help pay for ads...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

23 Jul.  “We forgot when we sent in our respective subs. for Chanticleer.  I would like to have a chance to talk about the mag. with you and GordonOne thing we didn’t mention was reviews.  Are you going to review books of poetry?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

31 Jul.  I’m glad you got Gordon along, very glad.  I like himI think I’m probably finding it even more difficult to ‘keep the green white and gold flying’ at present than you are...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

25 Aug.  “Thelma has asked me to send on this enclosed cheque to help to get Chanticleer out on its feetIt looks as if Chanticleer may be going to keep me busy, never mind the Editors!”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

25 Aug.  “I am very glad and honoured that you are publishing one of the three poems I sent you in the first number of Chanticleer...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

9 Sept.  “I return the poem ‘Here at the World’s End’.  It’s a good poem, though it seems to me to lack something.  I’m not sure what...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

27 Sept.  “I’ve looked at ‘General War’ again, and I find there is one verse where the assonance is not as I’d have it; but only in one verse...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

30 Sept.  “There’s only one thing worse than finding that people are having second thoughts about a poem of yours they’ve admired; which is, finding that they’re right to have second thoughts alas!”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

4 Oct.  “Enclosed I wish to submit a piece which has come to hand, for Chanticleer...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

22 Oct from Thelma.  “There’s magic in this Chanticleer.  Ewart has been reading it to me - (he sat on it all day!)”  Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

22 Oct.  “Errors apart Chanticleeris a most pleasing and lively and spirited piece of work.  The Editorial is a much clearer statement of aims than I had expected...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

6 Nov.  “I’ve obtained a copy of Botteghe Oscvre - published by Marguerite Caetani in Rome, which I would like you to see.  In fact it would be well for you to look at it before sending them anything...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

12 Nov.  “I enclose the necessary to see Chanticleer through this first issueIt’s a bitter thing that the very fact of being a poet puts a cloak of responsibility on you...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Sunday Nov.  “Not take your letter too seriously, eh?  But from my end of the line I do, and hope I may, take it seriously.  Because it strikes me as a very good letter, which puts the conflict arising out of your ‘material circumstances’ so to speak, very clearly indeed...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

1:11

Galvin, Patrick (cont'd)

1953

2 Jan.  “Do make a New Year resolution to send receipts for subscriptions to Chanticleer immediately they are received.  Doreen Pennifold says she has had no acknowledgment of her subscription yet...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

13 Jan.  “Have you got Chanticleeroff yet?  You know it’s a bad policy keeping things too long...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

24 Jan.  “Talking about poetry what I feel we need is a crusade to save Dylan Thomas from his new found friends including Miss Christiana Foyle and Madam the Minister of Education...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

13 Feb.  “I would like to back you with every penny I’ve got but unfortunately I’ve inherited certain responsibilities from which I cannot get clear for several years...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

27 Mar.  “If you could sometime explain more clearly what you meant during that Battle Sequence I’d be glad to hear it, for it struck me that there was a split somewhere showing its ugly head (pardon the metaphor!) and that it had something to do with metaphysics and dialectics...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

5 May.  “My feelings are mixed.  Where the publication of a brochure, book of poetry, or pamphlet, is concerned the position is clear.  You publish it, it costs you so much, and that’s that...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

8 May.  “It’s very good to hear you have a good story from Rhys Davies, he is a excellent writer, or was, and may still turn out something, though there’s been a repetition in his work...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

10 May.  “I shouldn’t worry about being described as an editor rather than as poet by the press.  The fact is you have to be recognized as something else before you are recognized as a poet in this country...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

24 May.  “I am glad you like my poem ‘The Haunting of Thurloe’ and greatly look forward to seeing it in the next issue of Chanticleer, especially since you tell me you are beginning a series of articles on ‘Poets of Today’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

11 Jun.  “The fact is that I had felt you were quite wrong to feel your work might be ‘swamped’ by mine and I got to brooding over ityour letter is very well put, and shows clearly how amazingly you have developed iin power of setting down your thought clearly...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

24 Jun.  “Apropos of nothing unless it was something George Lamming said, I’m a man of no vocation.  Life and living are my vocation.  When people say poetry is their vocation - though they live by prose - it sounds, to me, like making a religion of poetry...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

29 Jun.  “Well it’s the morning after and I’m wondering what I think about the party!  On the whole, a favourable impression remains.  Two things I remember with pleasure - oneyour singing; and (two) that little ‘passage of arms’ where G. S. Fraser read his poem, myself read ‘Erotic Prelude’ as counterpoint, and John Gawsworth came back with his Cleopatra piece!”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

30 Jul.  “I hope to be up in town tomorrow but the proofs of my book are due again from the Alcuin Press, and Russell wants me to correct them as quickly as possible...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

15 Sept.  “You asked me over the week end what I thought of the Russell article on myself in Chanticleer III.  I’d hadn’t really given it any thought, I fancy because I was grateful to find someone writing of me as a poet firstly, rather than as some sort of pamphleteer...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

28 Sept.  “Would you care to come to the Irish Literary Society’s at Home on Wednesday night?  Or would it bore you?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

21 Oct.  “Interested to hear about the ICA reading.  Do you want to do it?  Is there any point in reading to an ICA audience?  And anyway wont they all go at halftime, when the star turn, Day Lewis, has done his song and dance?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

3 Nov.  “Frankly I think this issue [Stand] is very bad; that is to say it is very badly presented, set up, and printed and so on.  The typography is terrible.  This is a pity because the material throughout is of a good standard...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

24 Nov.  “I got a nice letter from Brenda Pool this morning, together with a cheque for 14/- for travelling expenses.  Brenda says she was not there but she hears the reading was very successful.  I wouldn’t have described the reading as a whole very successful...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

1:12

Galvin, Patrick (cont'd)

1954

2 Jan.  “Here is my article and God help the editor or his typographer should they desecrate it with any blue pencil.  As a matter for the record I’ve really worked hard to get the balance of this...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

3 Jan.  “After the article was posted to you, I saw that I’d put the last paragraph of the final page badly, and it needed turning about a bit.  So in order to avoid delay I’ve typed it again...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

5 Jan.  “Here’s the ballad.  I must admit I don’t like it.  Or rather I like the ballad, the English air of which always sings beautifully.  But I don’t like the words.  In Irish the singer is always on the side of the bird...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

12 Jan.  “will you add this short paragraph to my article.  It will not make much difference to the length and it does, I think, make the final and vital point clearer...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

2 Feb.  “It’s so wretchedly cold here this morning that I’d better stay and try to keep the creatures warm...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

16 Feb.  “I hope to do something about Chanticleer before the week is out.  I’m as anxious as you are to get its printer squared up but things are a bit tight at the moment...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

22 Apr.  “I’m fit enough to type a few words on the old Olivetti now, though I’m still not supposed to go out or do any garden workI don’t remember being off work or laid out for so long in my life before!Now a word on your poem ‘Pikadon’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

30 May.  “Many thanks for sending me the copy of your review of my book Life Arboreal.  In your letter you say you found it difficult to write the reviewIt was not until I had read this first paragraph and thought over it that I understood what you meant by saying you wrote the review as an Irish Catholic writer...."   Typed and signed letter, 3s.

9 Jul.  “I see that the music man in the D W [Daily Worker] gives your first recording some notice I’m interested in your ‘Seal Woman’ song and wondering what piece of mine would go beside it - either as a contrast or complementary.  One of these days I’d like to record a poem or so, I mean record a reading of a few of my poems...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

12 Aug.  “Thanks for Wake and the Fredric Brown and the address.  I remember now that you showed me this copy of Wake before - containing the excellent short review of Eliot’s ‘Cocktail Party’I’m not at all sure they would like my poem ‘The Tragedy of Rocky Cashel’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

2 Sept.  “I had a letter from Doreen Pennyfold early this week enclosing £1 for Chanticleerin answer to ‘your heart rending’ appealShe sent a message ‘I’ve doubled my subscription to Chanticleer.  But I fear it’s little enough.  My regrets and regards to him and would you mind asking him if the Chanticleerisn’t getting a trifle too Irish’”  Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

13 Sept.  “You may remember I said that whatever Stella about you made no difference to my friendship for youam I not establishing the principle that people’s personal lives are their own affair?  As a matter of fact I have more than sympathy with the way you live, or wish to live.  You’re a Bohemian all right Galvin!”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

21 Oct.  “I don’t know how much your two tickets are to Wickford but perhaps 15/- covers it...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

1:13

Galvin, Patrick (cont'd)

1955

8 Jun.  “I thought this enclosed might interest you.  The second reaction I’ve had to that letter.  This poem by Peter Apple ton of whom I have never heard was sent in an unclosed three halfpenny envelope with no address, no letter, nothing except itself and the cutting [in reference to dropping of first A-bomb on Hiroshima]”  Typed and signed letter, 1s with carbon copy typed draft of the poem, ‘The Responsibility’, by Peter Appleton and excised letter to the editor by Milne.

6 Jul.  “I’m a bit sorry we didn’t have more of a ‘jam’ session of music last week end.  I’m sure Stella would have liked to have heard all the record of ‘The Singing Sailor’ - you yourself only heard one side(Anyone who says I am more patriotic than you are, after hearing this record, will be laughed out of court!  Or would you say you can sing these patriotic Davis songs without being in the least patriotic?...” Typed and signed letter, 1s.

5 Aug.  “In case I don’t get up to town tomorrow (Saturday) the address of Pacifica is Inferno PressSan FranciscoI’ll write to them myself asking why they cannot reply and acknowledge the receipt of my tape recording, letter, and books...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

16 Sept.  “I’ve been having quite a to-do with Desmond Greaves over my letters.  There was first the O’Casey letter, which was ignored, and recently I sent him a long letter on the attitude of those who, like John D. O’Rourke, seem to be screaming ‘For God’s sake don’t move!  Ye’ll have us murdered!’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

10 Oct.  “I had a letter this morning from Leslie Woolf Hedley in San Francisco.  He says a package of books and tape arrived there on Sept 22^nd.  The real point is that although Leslie Woolf likes my poetry as read in the two books, he likes the tape insofar as he can get it over a home recorder, he, representing Pacifica, says there is no money in the kitty...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

11 Oct.  “I got my copies of Poetry this morningI still think Lawrence’s ‘review’ is the only real ‘critique’ of my work that has appeared.  After reading it I went and read again your review of Life Arboreal, and since I now understood much more clearly what you had in mind when you wrote about my lack of understanding of all that is essentially Irish, I found to my surprise that I liked your review very well...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

31 Oct.  “Here is a copy of my letter to the N S [New Statesman]  I have also sent a copy to the United Irishman.  If it is not published by the N S [New Statesman] I will write some sort of a piece in the style of ‘The Rummy Road’ - but more serious - on Honor’s latest...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

14 Nov.  “I have sent the enclosed to Kingsley Martin.  It’s all I could do, but at least I’ve done it.  This will cut me off finally from the New Statesman, as even my poetry would hardly be welcome now...."   Handwritten and signed letter,. 1s.

29 Nov.  “Thanks forThe Democrat.  As for Desmond’s ‘Insult to a Nation’ well, for as long as people like Desmond put friendship (for the British or anyone else) before principle ( to ourselves) for just as long shall we be insulted by those who hate us...."    Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

1:14

Galvin, Patrick (cont'd)

1956

2 Jan.  “Thanks a lot for this Irish calendar, which has immediately gone up on the wall behind my head here in my room.  My thoughts, as I think you know, are more and more turning only to Ireland and things Irish...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

29 Feb.  “’The Drinking Songs’ is a gem of a record.  Really first class.  Every song is well nigh perfectly done...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

16 Mar.  “Thanks to Stella for the two Sci Fic booksSci-Fic is an awful rag-bag.  And these two are raggish and raggedy in the extreme...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

21 Jun.  “Here are the three poems you asked forGood luck.  Hope you get your visa and get to East Berlin...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

18 Jul.  “Here’s the copy of Poetry.  The three poems look well, I think, but for all they’ll mean in Ireland, Buster, they might as well have never been written...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

24 Oct.  “you might get away with a programme of poetry from ‘Irish Poets in Exile and Abroad’.  I suggest the ‘and abroad’ because I think it would be a good idea to ask Val Iremonger for some work and include him, and he is not exactly in exile...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

15 Nov.  “There’s no sign of A Thousand [---] of Irish Poetry hereIt would be a good thing if you asked Goldstein to get you a copy from the Devin-Adari Company...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

17 Nov from Thelma.  I’m so disappointed not to see you this week-end.  It’s craven and silly not to get together at such a time and there’s not a [fig] to choose between any as regards vehemence and obstinacy...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

20 Nov.  “I don’t understand why Stella and yourself didn’t come down at the week-endI gather the reason you didn’t come is our political disagreement - and this, Thelma says, seems to be verified by your letter of this morning...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s with typed transcription of Milne’s letter to the Editor of Irish Times 2p.

Tuesday Night Late 20^th Nov.  “I’ve just now read your letter to Thelma.  She will answer it, of course.  But in the meantime, and because you mention me quite a bit, I’d like to make a few comments.  You say: ‘if I condemn British action in Egypt I must in all conscience equally condemn Soviet action in Hungary’”  Typed and signed letter, 3 ½s.

22 Nov.  “This letter of yours today is so much in the nature of a personal attack on me, all mixed up with the wildest assertions of an almost completely subjective nature about the Hungarian situation, that it is really hardly worth a reply...."   Typed and signed letter, 5s.

27 Nov.  “I know your final note here says our friendship is at an end, and you wish no part or lot of any further letter from me[your] last notes deal mainly with detail, as for instance the question whether the S U Government lied about prisoners of war, or the number of prisoners of war, in their charge...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s with excised press cutting of a letter to newspaper editor.

St. Stephen’s Night.  “I’ve been reading your two poems here - ‘Ballad for Ballingar’ and ‘The Brothers’ very fine indeed.  I like them as poetry, as sound, for their music, but I do not know whether their meaning is on a par with their sound...."   Typed and signed letter, 2s.

10 Dec.  “The time lag between my sending that letter to the D W [Daily Worker] and its publication is one of three weeks roughly.  I shall not reply to your letter [in reference to the I.R.A.] here, but may do so publicly if it is published in the D W [Daily Worker].  Except I hope I can say that I didn’t know you were a Marxist...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

No date.  “Childe Patrick received.  God bless him.  Definitely too good to publish.  Will return before weekendA genius I said if ever there was wan.  Good bit of writing, though.  There’s more than ‘Childe Patrick’ in a state of disintegration and evaporation.  I’ll have a bet with ye this whole bloody country will fall ter [sic]bits soon...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

14 Dec.  “Here’s ‘Childe Patrick’ back, but I do wish I had a copy as well.  I doubt you’ll find an editor it doesn’t give [pink] fits to!  But maybe I’m wrongNo sign of your letter in D W [Daily Worker]”  Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

18 Dec.  “As it seems your letter is not going to be published in the D W [Daily Worker] - and I personally am disappointed - I am sending you this hypothetical reply to a hypothetical published letter...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s with carbon copy typescript of hypothetical letter [in reference to the I.R.A.] of reply, 1p.

1:15

Galvin, Patrick (cont'd)

1957

31 Jan.  “Life goes quietly on its way hereI had a letter from Zelma Beardslee of the Falcon’s Wing Press praising my stuff and saying the volume had now gone to the Editorial Director...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

Sunday.  “The arrangement of the ‘Wakey Wakey’ section of my book which you made is really first-classI would never have seen that it ought to begin with the ‘Poet Learn Your Trade’”  Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

15 Feb.  “I got the United Irishman this morning and note they, Sinn Fein, are putting up twenty candidates, not sixty as I thought.  Still it’s a start...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

27 Feb.  “A note to ask whether you’d like a loan of The Naked and the Dead?  I think you should read itI’m glad I’ve read it and wish I’d read it years ago when it came out first, as, even then, I’d have understood more of the anti-communism which is like a pivot on which the U.S. turns...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

5 Mar.  “Mr. G. S. Fraser has decided the IRA. Has outlived its usefulness, and who am I to say otherwise?  Sir, Ireland is a poor country, and it may be that in comparison with the population of a still rich Imperial Welfare State we are indeed ‘seedy’”  Typed and signed letter, 2s.

Friday.  5^th.  “When you say you are sick and tired of murder no matter what Government does it, on whatever pretext, I can only say, heartily, Hear, Hear...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

28 Mar.  “Will you give me the serial numbers of those two Mary O’Hara records, and tell me what Dublin Music shop to send for themI’ve been reading Hugh MacDiarmid’s article in the Daily Worker today.  Extraordinary how his experience, and his deductions and conclusions, almost entirely tally with my own...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

16 Apr.  “Glad to hear you have sent your book out.  There should be no trouble about it.  But the fact is that neither you nor myself are particularly ‘well got’ with G. S. Fraser and though I don’t think he would crab your book as he did my Life Arboreal, yet he wouldn’t go out of his way to do much for you...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

24 Apr.  “the Mary O’Hara recordarrived O. K.  We like it very muchAnd as a contrast to your singing and Delia Murphy’s it is splendid!If you ask whether I, too, feel a ‘backs to the wall’ feeling, I would answer that as an Irishman, yes I do...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

25 Apr.  “The only political comment I feel inclined to make at the moment concerns the goings on of one Robert Briscoe, Lord Mayor of Dublin.  Seriously, Paddy, I do not like Mr. Briscoe’s goings on in New York...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

2 May.  “Dear Messrs. Woggs - and Blodds if still (unfortunately) with us.  As for your client, Mr. Patrick Galvin - was that by any chance him on Radio Eireann (as they call it in the so called Free State) the other night caterwailing out of him with his Humor Songs?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

14 Jun.  “Thelma wants to do my book, by Sankey.  I mean she wants Sankey to print it and herself to publish it.  I had nightmares last night about both books, Rocky Cashel and Once More to Tourney.  I thought we had published them and there were just no sales at all...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

20 Jun.  “I have long thought that William Allingham’s ‘The Fairies’ needed a good translator.  Now he’s got one.  Your translation of ‘The Fairies’ should be published, preferably in an Irish paper or magazine.  Or maybe in the Ossavetore Romano - good grief, why can’t I spell right...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

26 Jun.  “I’m sending you two pieces just to show the hand hasn’t lost all its cunning.  I’ve worked on these two poems off and onfor a longish timeHave not got any further with publication of Once More to Tourney..  It’s still pending maybe...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

1 Jul.  “I called this poem ‘The Atomic Dawn’ because it is not concerned only with the bomb, but with the beginning of the harnessing of atomic energy, the opening of the atomic age...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

17 Jul.  “This the sort of thing you mean?  Now look, I don’t mean this is the blurb as finished.  It’s just a sketch...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s with typescript of aforementioned blurb, with considerable handwritten revisions, 2p.

Friday.  “Glad you liked the blurbI entirely agree with you that a poet cannot write his own blurb.  What I want to know is: who’s going to do my blurb forOnce More to Tourney.?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

No date.  “I wrote this Blurb by the simple expedient of putting myself in to the publisher’s chair, sitting there, and thinking out what I would want to say about that fella whose poetry I had agreed to publish, Ewart Milne...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

No date.  “You and Stella have done wonders with that awful blurb...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

1 Aug.  “I don’t know whether you’ve met Zukey or not.  If you have, and want to get the case to Thelma, and come down over the weekend, we’d pay the fare...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

28 Aug.  “The financial side with Wynne-Tyson Thelma tells me will be fixed up now within a few days and we can then regard it as settled that the book will go ahead.  Actually Wynne-Tyson wants it to go to press next month Irish Times  published my letter, first putting their blue pencil through the reference to ‘Fethard-on-Sea Atomic Energy Stations’”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

29 Aug.  “Many thanks for the book, Be Glad Your're Neurotic.  It looks terrible, it is terrible.  Its mostly bilge too, you know.  Could you let me have a list sometime of the Chanticleer review list?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

25 Sept.  “Quidunc in the Irish Times reported Don MacDonagh as saying they had finished the selection of poets for the Oxford BookI am at the end of thirty years devoted work in poetry, and for poetry, and with nine books or more, and appearances in many anthologies of a lesser nature, to my credit.  My name among those in the Oxford Book would, in a sense, be a crowning of the work...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

26 Sept.  “would you see if you’ve got a copy of that poem of mine which I think you had with you in East Germany.  I mean ‘Monday Song For Sunday’Don’t regard my business with the Oxford Book just as another crisis, please.  It’s more than that.  I’m at a turning point in my life...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

27 Sept.  “I’ve just remembered the A E Memorial Prize is open until Oct 1.  Why not send the page proofs of Heart of Grace over right away?”  Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

27 Sept.  “Your remarks on editors and anthologies are only too right!  But you’re not quite right about Milne and the Oxford Book of Irish Verse.  Of course I don’t know that I have been excluded...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

3 Oct.  “I wrote to J. M. Cohen asking would he care to do a one page introduction to Once More to Tourney.  J. M. replied saying Delighted, if I thought it would help to sell the book, and to send him the galleys.  No news.  But the matter of the OUP Irish book has been taken up, by Austin and others, behind the scenes...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

3 Oct.  “Just after I’d written to you I had a phone call from The Irish Embassy “Mr. Iremonger to speak to Mr. MilneVal says he’s had a note from Donagh to say there has been a mix up about the whole business of the OUP. Book...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

15 Oct.  “I’m beginning to doubt this business of the OUP Irisih Verse altogether - where I’m concerned, I mean...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

6 Nov.  “I have to come up to town on Friday for some messages.  See you 5.30 pm at Joe’s...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

10 Nov.  “Just a note to say I have written for your book to the New Statesman and Irish Writing.  I don’t suppose I’ll get it for either.  Priestly says the cultural life of London is run by homosexuals and I think that is one reason I will not get your book for the New Statesman.  And I also think it is one reason it may be review - for Heart of Grace itself, and entirely for the wrong reasons...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

14 Nov.  “I return the letter from Val IremongerHe says all he could say at that moment.  Perhaps, when he’s read Heart of Grace again, he’ll say more.  But I wouldn’t imagine he will altogether approve of some of the book.  Risking you falling on me with a hatchet, and decapitating and beheading me forthwith, I am going to declarethat I like Kruschov...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

10 Dec.  “If your book has been seized by the Irish Customs and you are in process of being banned in Ireland, the answer is I shouldn’t  be surprised!  In a way they should ban it.  And of course that won’t do you a tiny bit of harm...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

11 Dec.  “ To conclude my remarks on the Sputniks and Flopniks, I note that old Sedov, who is one of the heads of the Soviet science specialists, says that he believes the American specialists will shortly succeed in launching artificial earth satellites.  And he adds ‘Soviet specialists sincerely wish success to American scientists and engineers.  That’s the kind of talk I like...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

16 Dec.  “I think the ethics of publishing say that when a publisher has accepted a sheaf of poems for publication they are then his property as far as publication goes, and any sneaking of them off to magazines will incur his wrathJohn Redmond Lit. Ed. of The Democrat sent me your book to review...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

31 Dec.  “Well, its New Years tomorrow!  I have to come up to town tomorrow and will be hanging round Joe’s at about 5.45 pm...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

2:1

Galvin, Patrick (cont'd)

1958

6 Jan.  “I’m sending you a copy of my review of Heart of Grace.  Lord save us!  Talk about your feat in writing this book - I’m a limp rag after merely writing a review for it!!”  Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

13 Jan.  “Glad you liked the review.  Far from cutting it, there was another vital paragraph which I would insist on adding - if it was any useI think I would be right to refuse to cut any review I wrote of your book; because, you see, I do regard it as a very important work, whereas my feeling is that editors - especially Irish editors - will be trying to write it down, even if they are not conscious of it...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Thursday.  “I don’t think I can get up to town tomorrow - Friday - but could you get down over the week end, when we might discuss this projected ‘Collected Poems’ of mine...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

21 Jan.  “You may be surprised to hear I have asked Jon not to send any review copy of my book to The Observer.  Why waste a good copy?  And why give them the opportunity to slight it?”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

30 Jan.  “Very pleased indeed with this book of mine.  If it’s not review in the Great Stately English Observer it’s their loss not mine.  In it’s way it is a minor classic...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

10 Feb.  “Thanks for sending The Irish Press  review.  Yes, the publication date of Tourney is 10 Feb, today.  Anyway, despite Robin Skelton and Kevin Fallen and other poets turned critic, I have always thought that poetry reviewing and criticism is better and safer out of the hands of poets altogether...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s with Carbon copy typed letter Milne to The Literary Editor of The Irish Press, 1s.

11 Feb.  “This Irish Press review has got me beaten!  What book is the man reviewing?  Listen Mangan, the last but five?  The one valuable thing is that he has all unwittingly given me a pretty clear picture of what happened about that book...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

12 Feb.  [Typed transcription of a letter addressed to Ernest Schiff, Petah Tikwa, Israel].  “Dear Mr. Milne, my younger brother, I am one of the ‘any men’ who has something to say to you, though, unfortunately, only in his mother tongue Ohne Lohn...."   Typed letter, 1s.

16 Feb.  “Could you get Thelma a copy of the Irish Democrat?  She’s keeping all reviews of your book, as well as of mine - that’s if mine ever gets any reviewsI must say I get hilarious responses from those few people to whom I have sent personal copies of Tourney...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

19 Feb.  “I have had a letter from Val, including the translation I asked him for - nothing much to ‘Rex McGall’s’ letterbut I wasn’t sure for what the man was saying about the Carlow Nationalist.  Val says he much enjoyed Once More to Tourney...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

5 Feb.  “Got your letter with The Irish Press review.  Well, your book was reviewed, I suppose.  Why didn’t they give mine to Kinsella, or did he palm it off on Faller?As regards my mss and books, of course you have an entirely free hand...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

2 Mar.  “Thanks for the British Council’s Poetry Today.  I’m surprised to see my name in the bibliography, even.  It must have gone against their grain to do so.  No Irish poet - that is no poet from the Twenty Six Counties is otherwise mentioned...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

5 Mar.  “Very interested in this case of Bishops versus the Law in Italy.  I hope the Law wins, for once...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

9 Mar.  “don’t worry about the projected volume of my worksThere is time.  Get yourself well, brother!”  Typed and signed letter, 1s.

16 Mar.  “No reviews yet.  Looks bad for me, but I agree the time is usually anything up to two months or more before there are any.  Could there be any worse form of writing today than poetry - it’s a doom to be a poet, I can tell you that, unless you get some gimmick...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

19 Mar.  “I hope you won’t be misled by the quiet tone of my letter to the Editors of The Delta.  Actually, I sent the letter, as requested, care of Anthony Smith at Corpus Christi, Cambridge, with a covering note telling him the letter should be treated as a contribution, and also saying that is such a review had been written by a national of any country but Ireland, and published here in England as it stands, there would have been an outcry against the gross discourtesy of it...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s with Carbon copy typed letter Milne to John Kimber and Michael Carthew, editors, Delta, 2s.

24 Mar.  “Just in case you do want this poem ‘The Changeling’ for the Milne book, here is the final draft...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

27 Mar.  “I now believe my book is getting the silent treatmentI’ve only heard this morning that Seumas O’Sullivan died Monday.  The last of the Triumvirate of Yeats...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

29 Mar.  “I had three copies of the Dublin Socialist paper The Plough for you to have a glance at.  And they come out strongly about the Festival plays withdrawn -tostalitis.  They’re very bitter on that - and say it was and is hysteria.  They say rightly the Bishop was entitled to express his opinions, and his dislike of O’Casey and the Joyce play...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

31 Mar.  “The enclosed may interest you.  There seems no end to this now.  I don’t know if you wrote or sent your letter, or whether you have had a reply.  But obviously, John Kimber does see they have been at faultI never said the editors were responsible for what their contribu tors said...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

2 Apr.  “I have written a ‘Note on S. O’S.’ (Seumas O’Sullivan) which I think it would be a good thing for Delta to publish as a counter blast to Weber...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

Thursday.  “I don’t think Austin meant to identify me with Johnny Crusoe.  The review is a favourable one, on the whole, and, for Austin, fair enough...."   Handwritten and signed letter, 1s.

8 Apr.  “Sorry we couldn’t have a yarn alone last Thursday or whenever it was, but I had wanted to see Roger for a few momentsI don’t think Cambridge improves him - somehow...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

17 Apr.  “I looked in at the Connolly meeting last night but didn’t stay to the end.  The meeting was a complete disappointment, but I’m glad I went to find out.  I liked a woman speaker, Dr. O’Shea, as she seemed to me sincere and a good socialist republican...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

24 Apr.  “You are quite right.  My main interest - as I have just patiently explained to one Carne-Ross of the BBC (who wants to review Tourney in their New Verse series) is to get the work read aloud by some suitable person or persons...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

28 Apr.  “Well now, your man in The Cork Examiner April 3^rd reviewing Once More to Tourney says, among other things, ‘It is a gay book, ribald and vulgar as a Saturday night’s drinking, but the poet’s word is there all the same, and if he doesn’t sing of daffodils the rawer flower he does sing of has a wild strength and a desperate courage that may walk abroad head-high and die roaring’Typed and signed letter, 1s.

No date.  “How’s the Milne manuscript?  It’s the one thing I’m looking forward to seeing.  The other is your manuscript of ‘The Kings Are Out.’  (Digressions: Are the bloody kings out?  What about De Gaulle?  He’s trying to be king of Franceand unless someone actshe will be dictator...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Monday.  “I see Dev’s arrested many of the lads.  I thought that would happen.  Costello wouldn’t have dared do itDuring the war many of the boys died in Dev’s jails and in the concentration camp at the Curragh, and nobody knew a damn thing about it.  One word more about that British writers appeal business...."   Typed and signed letter, 1s.

Sunday.  “It was not, and is not, a