62 Pembroke Road

No 62 Pembroke Road was one of many locations in the area where poet and novelist Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) lived for a period. It was from No 62 on 31 May 1945, that he wrote a letter to Hilda Moriarty, who was the inspiration for his poem On Raglan Road.

Transcribed by Peter Denton for the National Library of Ireland, it reads:

My dearest Hilda,
Please do not take exception to the address of "dearest" or think it presumption on my part. I am no longer mad about you although I do like you very very much. I like you because of your enchanting selfishness, and I really am your friend - if you will let me. I should not, perhaps, write this letter to you without your replying to my other, but I am in such good humour regarding you that I want you to know it. Remembering you is like remembering some dear one who has died. There has never been - and never will be - another woman who can be the same to me as you have been. Your friendship or love or whatever it was, was so curious, so different. I wish you would write to me a friendly letter even if I cannot see you.
I met Cyril in the Country Shop and he was looking well.
Believe me, Hilda
Yours fondly
Patrick

NLI Ref.: MS 46,868; NLI Ref.: MS 46,868

Kavanagh is best remembered for his poetry, most notably “The Great Hunger” and “On Raglan Road”. The latter was published in 1946 and famously released as a song twenty years later following a chance encounter between Kavanagh and Luke Kelly (himself a former resident of Dartmouth Square) in 1966. The Monaghan born poet, who lived in this area from 1939 until his death, is commemorated with no less than three plaques (62 Pembroke Road, 1943-1958, 19 Raglan Road, 1958-1959, and Baggot Street Bridge, on the site of Parson’s Bookshop) and three canal bank benches (two stone and wood benches, one of which also has a dedication to Percy French, either side of the lock, at Baggot Street Bridge, and a wonderful bronze sculpture and bronze canal bench, on the west side).