celebrating benedict kiely 2007 benedict kiely weekend keynote address

Benedict Kiely (1919-2007) has an annual weekend devoted to his memory as one ofIreland’s leading writers in the modern period. The sixth such event was held in the newly-built Strule Arts Centre in Omagh in September 2007. Kiely lived most of his life in Dublin, pursuing a career as a journalist and a writer, but his roots were in County Tyrone. Educated by the Christian Brothers in Omagh, he embarked on a Jesuit novitiate in the Irish Midlands but this was cut short by a spinal injury, which meant a year of confinement on the broad of his back. Subsequently, he went on to read English and History at University College Dublin. His journalistic career took him first to the Irish Independent and then to the Irish Press, where he was literary editor. In the 1960s he took up visiting professorships at several North American colleges in Oregon and Tennessee. On his return he became well-known on Irish radio for talks and discussion programmes, and he was a regular contributor to Sunday Miscellany. A sharp observer of the Northern scene, he was particularly disturbed by the upsurge in violence in the recent Troubles, airing his grievances in imaginative works such as Proxopera (1977) andNothing Happens in Carmincross (1985). He died in Dublin on 9 February 2007 after a short illness, and after Requiem mass in Donnybrook he was laid to rest in the Dublin Road Cemetery in Omagh. The following is the text of the opening address I was invited to give at the sixth annual weekend. I spoke about Kiely’s sense of connection running through his writings.