IT'S A mark of any influential writer that they become more revered in death perhaps than in life – and Omagh born broadcaster and writer Benedict Kiely is no different.
Nine years after his death at the age of 87, his reputation continues to grow with a new reprint of one of his novels and the hosting of the 15th Benedict Kelly Weekend festival in the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh on September 9-11.
His novel The Captain with the Whiskers has just been republished by Turnpike Books.
Kiely cheekily wrote that it had originally been earmarked to be dedicated to Brendan Behan if Kiely's father Tom and Derry journalist Terry Ward hadn't died the year of its original publication.
Kiely is regarded by his native country's literary lovers as one of the greatest Irish writers of the 20th century. Frank Sweeney, chairman of Omagh Arts Committee which runs the Kiely festival, says that John Hume once referred to the writer as coming up with the blueprint of the peace process with his first book, Counties of Contention (1945).
"Ben was a historian as well as a writer. Counties was really about the reasons for partition in Ireland and when it was republished in 2005, John Hume wrote the preface," Frank explains.
"He said he was stunned and astounded because what he found in this book was actually the blueprint of the peace process. He couldn't believe it."
Kiely was born in 1919, just weeks after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, in the townland of Drumskinny, in Dromore, Co Tyrone. His father, who was a Boer War veteran, and mother moved to Omagh when he was a baby.
He went to the local Christian Brothers school before going to study as a Jesuit priest in Co Laois.
"Ben left the Jesuits and then spent a year and a half in an orthopedic hospital in Dublin with a bad back," adds Frank. "And he said that it was the good-looking nurses that saved him from vocation.
"Ben had a great sense of humour, you know. He was a prodigious writer and was one of the best short story writers in Ireland. He wrote over 40 short stories, nine or 10 novels and four travel books, was a journalist and broadcaster and presented Sunday Miscellany on RTE1 radio for 20 years.
"The thing about Ben Kiely is that even though he left Omagh and lived in Dublin for over 40 odd years until he died, Omagh never really left Ben. He always came back to Omagh looking for the inspiration for his stories and characters, even though his themes are universal."
Frank's father went to school with Kiely and his friend Stephen McKenna, another stalwart of the Omagh Arts Committee, regularly hosted the author when he came to visit Omagh.
The Captain with the Whiskers was first published in 1960; James Doyle, a Co Fermanagh man who now works in a London publishing company, is behind its recent republishing.
A lifelong fan of Northern Ireland writers, he decided to print a small run of The Captain when he discovered it had gone out of print.
It's the second Kiely novel that Doyle has published. He published Proxopera: A Tale of Modern Ireland in 2015 – Kiely's angry reaction to the violence of the Troubles first published in 1977 – also after it had gone out of print.
He explains: "I started Turnpike Books about three years ago to publish new editions of novels by 'forgotten' northern Irish writers as I felt there was a need for the books to be available for a new generation of readers,
"I thought that northern Irish writing can often be reduced to Seamus Heaney and that other writers, like Benedict Kiely [who was a friend of Heaney's], can be overlooked as a consequence.
"I read The Captain with the Whiskers as a teenager in the late 1980s and it has always stayed with me as the Captain is one of the most memorable characters created in Irish literature."
Another great Omagh figure, Irish nationalist poet, writer and feminist Alice Milligan, will be remembered at the festival coming up to the 150th anniversary of her birthday which will be attended by Kiely's widow. Omagh writer Martina Devlin will read from her short story inspired by Milligan at her resting place in Drumquin on the Saturday.
:: The Captain with the Whiskers from Turnpike Books is available from Waterstones, priced £10. For further information on the Benedict Kiely Weekend festival, Omagh, on September 9-1,1 visit www.struleartscentre.co.uk
