Michael Hartnett (in Irish, Micheál Ó hAirtnéide) was born in Croom, County Limerick, in 1941. He was raised in nearby Newcastle West and was occasionally fostered out to his grandmother in the nearby countryside, who taught him to love the Irish language. The son of working-class parents, he completed his secondary education locally and immediately emigrated to England.
Hartnett began publishing poetry in newspapers while working as a tea boy at a London construction site. Paul Durcan brought his work to the attention of John Jordan, who arranged for him to attend University College Dublin for one year. Without this backing and financial support from an aunt, he would not have been able to afford any further education. Afterwards, he returned to London for several years, during which he met and married Rosemary Grantley. His first book of poetry, Anatomy of a Cliché, was inspired by their romance. After its publication in 1968, the Hartnetts moved back to Dublin.
Harnett worked at blue-collar jobs for his living while writing furiously during his free time. He would go on to publish more than 25 books over the 31 years of his literary career, spanning ballads, haiku, satires, love poems, and more. A number of his books were translations, of Irish poetry as well as Chinese and Spanish works. These languages and traditions colored his writing and helped to broaden the conception of what an Irish poem could be. In 1974, he moved his growing family to the village of Templeglantine near where he was raised, hoping to come in deeper contact with the Irish language. In the same year, he began teaching at Thomond College of Education, Limerick, and won both the Irish American Literature Award and the Arts Council Award.
In 1975, Hartnett let the world know that he would no longer be writing in English but would “court the language of his people” and only write in Irish. He kept to his word for nearly a decade, only returning to writing in English in 1985, shortly after his return to Dublin. A period of work in English was followed by several translations of Irish poets of the 17th and early 18th century. In this period, he won the American-Ireland Fund Literary Award twice, as well as the Irish-American Cultural Institute Award and the Irish Arts Council Award for the best book in Irish. He was made a member of Aosdána and was the subject of a documentary, Michael Hartnett: Necklace of Wrens.
Hartnett’s lifelong struggle with alcoholism led first to the collapse of his marriage and then to his early death in 1999. He left behind two children, Lara and Niall. Although not well known outside of Ireland, he is considered one of the great Irish poets of the 20th century, as well as a force that helped tilt Irish poetics away from an Anglo-Irish focus. Major poets such as Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Michael Longley, and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin have recognized his influence on their own work. The Éigse Michael Hartnett Literary & Arts Festival is held in his honor each fall in Limerick.
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More Michael Hartnett
Text: Read poems by Hartnett at the Poetry Foundation
Video: Paula Meehan reads Harnett's poem "Death of an Irishwoman"
Text: Carol Rumens discusses Hartnett's poem "A Necklace of Wrens" at The Guardian
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Photo courtesy of the Gallery Press.