A Forgotten Irish Cosmopolitanism: Goh Poh Seng’s Ireland of the 1950s

Abstract

Goh Poh Seng, one of Singapore’s most respected writers, first emerged as a writer during his period as an expat in Ireland in the fifties, when he was studying medicine at Trinity College Dublin. This chapter reads his 2015 memoir, Tall Tales and MisAdventures of a Young Westernized Oriental Gentleman, in which he describes his adventures in Ireland as an expat and his early struggles to become a writer. Goh Poh Seng describes his relationship with Patrick Kavanagh and his brief encounter with Samuel Beckett in a light-hearted and yet profound way that sheds light on the forgotten Irish cosmopolitanism of the fifties. This chapter also offers important insights into why one of Ireland’s most celebrated writers who did not become an Irish expat—Patrick Kavanagh—chose to remain in Ireland.