Welsh poet Dylan Thomas visited Ardara.
A VISIT made to Donegal by the famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas is recounted in a new book about him by Irish author Jackie Hayden.
A Map Of Love – Around Wales With Dylan Thomas features a section about Thomas’ Irish connections including a holiday he took in Ardara.
“Despite having an Irish wife, Caitlin Macnamara, Dylan only made two visits to Ireland in his life. He came to Ardara with the English critic Geoffrey Grigson and thoroughly enjoyed the food and drink he partook of while here.
“In fact, he was enjoying himself so much that when Grigson announced that he had to return to London, Dylan opted to stay on.
“There are rumours that he left one or two unpaid bills too. He had a fondness for places close to the sea, so Ardara would have suited him nicely, although Thomas’ biographers have mistakenly spelled the name as Ardara,” said Hayden.
The well-known HotPress contributor’s project also focuses on the places in Wales associated with the poet Dylan Thomas and referenced in his works.
Hayden’s CD script is read by Welsh arch-druid Jim Parc Nest, and was recorded in the room where Dylan was born in Swansea. Thomas was living in The Boathouse in Laugharne when he died in 1953, so the launch and the book/CD link both ends of Thomas’ life.
“I first became attracted to Dylan Thomas through reading that Bob Dylan, another hero of mine, had changed his name because of his admiration for the Welsh poet,” said Hayden who was in Letterkenny last Friday night judging the final of BEO! at the Regional Cultural Centre.
A Map Of Love – Around Wales With Dylan Thomas is the follow-up to Hayden’s number one best-seller of last year, My Boy, his biography of Phil Lynott based on interviews he recorded with the rock stars mother Philomena, and is published jointly by Iconau Books and Fflach Records.
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