In Memoriam Brendan O'Beirne

In Memoriam Brendan O Beirne audio

In Memoriam Brendan O Beirne was written from a dream visit Brendan made to me some weeks after his death in the summer of 2010 in which he uttered the first two lines. Born in Clare in 1949, Brendan attended Trinity College, Dublin where he read French and was therefore familiar with the poetry of Guillaume Apollinaire and Paul Éluard.
Brendan travelled overland to India when it was still possible to do so. Alan Ginsberg’s appearance in the second stanza is a reference to when Brendan encountered him outside the Roundhouse in London, both of them having failed to gain entry to an early Pink Floyd concert. Brendan was a prolific poet, producing fifteen collections of poetry during his life.
The poem is taken from my second poetry collection, Rage (Revival Press, 2017). This recording was made on 25 June 2020.