Hubert Butler-The Nuncio And The Writer – RTÉ One 8 August 2017
A documentary on the incredible Hubert Butler will air this Tuesday, 8 August on RTÉ One at 10.35 pm.
Hubert Butler was one of the main reasons that Antony Farrell decided to establish The Lilliput Press in 1984, after discovering that Butler’s work was out of print.
“Hubert Butler was one of the most extra ordinary Irish writers of the past century, as old as the century. He was aged eight-three when it was my privilege to meet him – one of a small handful to whom the word genius could be attached. We worked closely together on three of his five volumes of essays at his home in Kilkenny and my own in Westmeath. By the time of his death in 1991 he had become an Internationally recognised figure. He gave impetus and purpose to the Lilliput Press. His work, politically prescient and artistically timeless, had the style and moral clarity of a Montaigne or Swift. In this increasingly fragile, rudderless world it should command the utmost attention.” Antony Farrell.
Born in Kilkenny on 23 October 1900, Butler was educated in England at Charterhouse and St John’s College, Oxford. Following his education he travelled extensively throughout Europe during the twenties and thirties before returning in 1941 to Co. Kilkenny, where he lived until his death in 1991. Market gardener, broadcaster, journalist and historian, his published works include Escape from the Anthill, The Children of Drancy, and In the Land of Nod, all of which won him international recognition. A one volume selection, The Sub-Prefect Should Have Held His Tongue, is available from Alan Lane Penguin in London; a further selection, Independent Spirit, appeared with Farrar, Straus & Giroux in New York in 1995.