WORLD renowned poet Desmond O’Grady, who was born in Limerick in 1935, passed away in Cork this week after suffering a heart attack.
Mr O’Grady (78) was a member of Aosdána and was awarded the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in 2004.
The acclaimed poet went to boarding school in Roscrea; he moved to Paris in the 1950s and worked in the Shakespeare and Company bookshop before he began teaching.
Mr O’Grady was a teaching fellow at Harvard University where he completed his MA and PhD; he also lived and taught in Italy and in Egypt.
President Michael D Higgins has paid tribute to Mr O’Grady, describing him as “one of Ireland’s best-known poets”, who was deeply committed to his work.
Mr O’Grady was a founding member of the European Community of Writers; collections of his work include ‘The Road Taken: Poems 1956-1996’ and ‘The Wandering Celt’.
His funeral will be held in Kinsale, where he lived for the last 25 years of his life.
