Brendan Kennelly obituary

The poet Brendan Kennelly, who has died aged 85, invited readers to embrace and understand their polar opposites. His most ambitious and controversial work, Cromwell (1983), addressed the archetypal enemy of his native Ireland – Oliver Cromwell as commander of the English campaign there in 1649-50 – empathetically.

The Book of Judas (1991), a 400-page work that was a bestseller in Ireland, suggested that the classic traitor had loved, and indeed created, the man whom he betrayed with a kiss.