Dennis Greig, who has died aged 76, was a poet and the editor of Lapwing Publications, a luminary poetry press in Belfast, for more than 30 years.
At first glance, Dennis looked like a cross between an ancient bard and a heavy-metal guitarist. After a little acquaintance he became an even more visionary figure. Michael Longley gave his blessings and voice to the establishment of Lapwing Publications, as well as Mairtín Crawford, himself an interstellar force in the promotion of new poets beyond the safety nets of academia. The cross-community nature of the venture was never in doubt, and it became the wellspring of Dennis’s theatrical projects – along with his wife, Rene, he ran a theatre group for young actors, touring to venues in Ireland and to Brighton.
Lapwing was established in 1988 and has produced more than 500 volumes, an astonishing mixture of ingenues and established writers, many from Ireland, but by no means exclusively so. If an unknown writer’s manuscript showed style, vigour, a refusal to conform and yet a celebration of formal skills, it would find a home in the citadel at Ballysillan. At the same time, if a poet languished from the vagaries of fashion, Lapwing gave space and vital support, if such support was warranted. Dennis was stubborn, voluble, brazen in his assaults on any kind of complacency or cabal. It was common to receive a Swiftian diatribe in the course of an otherwise mundane communication: his knowledge and passion for literature was in his bloodstream.
Dennis’s mother, Ruth Greig, was a cleaner all her life. His father was an Australian serviceman; Dennis never knew his name. Leaving school at 15, Dennis worked full-time in an Indian takeaway restaurant before studying engineering at Feldon College (now part of the Northern Regional College) in Northern Ireland (1979-82); then conflict-resolution counselling and theatre, at Queen’s University Belfast on a Workers’ party initiative (1993); and, finally, English literature at the University of Ulster (2012). For 20 years from 1973 he worked for TRW Mission, manufacturing parts that were used on space rockets. His passion for theatre and poetry found expression in founding the Hammer writers’ group in 1983.
Throughout Dennis’s struggle for recognition, Rene (nee Snoddy) was not only a soulmate, but a fellow pilgrim for the arts and for cross-community projects. They met in a dancehall in Belfast in 1966 and married in 1969. They were inseparable and did a great sideline in ballroom dancing, dressing for the occasion with panache.
The final years of Dennis’s life were blighted with illness, remissions and setbacks. During a brief respite from hospital, he attended a tribute reading for himself and Lapwing Press at the Linen Hall library in Belfast. Afterwards, palpably drained, he refused an ambulance back to the Queen Victoria. I only understood why when I swear I saw Dennis, Rene and their son Amos gathered on a bench, cigarettes ablaze. Freedom was his birthright, even if it killed him.
Dennis is survived by Rene, their sons, Amos, Louis and Malcolm, and five grandchildren.
