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Brendan Kennelly rarely does press interviews. For his 75th birthday this year, he did RTE's The Late Late Show, but my producer got him to agree to an interview with me.ÌýI met him in the English department of Trinity College Dublin. I studied there in the mid 80's and Kennelly was one of my tutors. I remember he was so popular with students from other courses, it was hard to get a seat sometimes!

To find myself sitting opposite him, surrounded by Old English books on Anglo-Saxon and Piers Plowman in the English departmental library, was slightly surreal. The last time I spent time with him was around 1988, meeting him on O'Connell Bridge in Dublin, and being invited for a drink. He was on the water, having had his last drink of anything stronger a few years previous. I had a pint of something, and remember doing figures of 8 on my bicycle back out to Ranelagh.

Still off the drink 26 years later, he says it was a young doctor who told him in the early 80's that if he didn't stop drinking he would be dead within a few years. Something got through and he gave up. If I could meet that doctor I would give her the biggest hug for saving one of Ireland's greatest living poets and a man whose company it is a pleasure to be in.

My interview with Brendan KennellyÌýgoes out this Tuesday 12thÌýJuly in an Arts Extra special 1830-1900 and will be on the bbc iplayer for the following 7 days.

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