John Montague obituary

Prolific poet, writer and translator inspired by his Irish homelandThose who enjoy the Chieftains may not realise that the band took their name from a collection of short stories, Death of a Chieftain (1964), by the Irish poet John Montague, who has died aged 87.Anyone who heard Montague himself performing, however, is quite likely to recollect what the poet Derek Mahon called his “mythical stammer”. This struggle to express himself, to find words for the ineffable or the unspeakable