[4][5] His father and grandfather both worked in Guinness's brewery,[6] his father, a union organiser, in the cooperage, later working as "a helper, a labourer, on a Guinness delivery lorry"; his grandfather ran a barge from the brewery to sea-going vessels in Dublin harbour.

After a few terms in college, he took a post in the Irish civil service in the department of finance and continued his university studies at night, having switched to humanities and arts.

[9] Many of Kinsella's early poems were published in the University College Dublin magazine National Student from 1951 to 1953.

[10] His first pamphlet, The Starlit Eye (1952),[11] was published by Liam Miller's Dolmen Press,[12] as was Poems (1956), his first book-length publication.

[20] According to critic Dillon Johnston, Kinsella's translations of Táin and An Duanaire have helped to "revitalize" the Irish literary canon.

The first Peppercanister production was Butcher's Dozen, a satirical response to the Widgery Tribunal into the events of Bloody Sunday.

[29] One Fond Embrace (1988) and Poems from Centre City (1990) allude to historical antecedents including Brian Merriman and medieval curse poetry to dissect contemporary events such as architectural development in Dublin.