My brother attended the funeral of Anthony Cronin today and here are some of his thoughts on Cronin – and he reproduces Cronin’s “Happiness” which mentions our father and his shop on Westland Row…
(Above: The First Bloomsday Celebrations at Sandycove, Co. Dublin, June 16th, 1954. From l-r Anthony Cronin, Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh)
I used to see Anthony Cronin every day, as he’d pop into my late father’s grocery shop on Westland Row.
Anthony always used to chat to my Dad at length about anything and everything, and was always an exceptionally kind and gregarious man. This was when I was quite young, years before I had any idea who he was, or aware of what he had done for the arts in Ireland.
Labels like poet, critic or author don’t go far enough to capture the breadth and influence of Cronin’s life and work, who helped found the Irish Museum of Modern Art and initiated the official celebration of the first Bloomsday in 1954.
Here is a hilarious silent one-minute clip of Cronin, Flann O’Brien, Patrick Kavanagh, John Ryan, Tom Joyce, and…
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Séamus Sweeney 