Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney MRIA (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age".[3][4] Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller."[5] Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".[6]
Seamus Heaney
13 April 1939
Tamniaran, near Castledawson, Northern Ireland
30 August 2013 (aged 74)
Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland
St. Mary's Church, Bellaghy, Northern Ireland
- Poet
- playwright
- translator
1966–2013
- Death of a Naturalist (1966)
- North (1975)
- Field Work (1979)
- The Spirit Level (1996)
- Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (translation, 1999)
- District and Circle (2006)
- Human Chain (2010)
3
Heaney was born in the townland of Tamniaran between Castledawson and Toomebridge, Northern Ireland. His family moved to nearby Bellaghy when he was a boy. He became a lecturer at St. Joseph's College in Belfast in the early 1960s, after attending Queen's University and began to publish poetry. He lived in Sandymount, Dublin, from 1976 until his death.[7] He lived part-time in the United States from 1981 to 2006. He was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997, and their Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994, he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1996 he was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in 1998 was bestowed the title Saoi of Aosdána. He received numerous prestigious awards.
Heaney is buried at St. Mary's Church, Bellaghy, Northern Ireland. The headstone bears the epitaph "Walk on air against your better judgement", from his poem "The Gravel Walks".[8]
Legacy[edit]
The Seamus Heaney HomePlace, in Bellaghy, is a literary and arts centre which commemorates Heaney's legacy.[116] His literary papers are held by the National Library of Ireland.
Following an approach by Fintan O'Toole, the Heaney family authorised a biography of the poet, with access to family-held records (2017). O'Toole had been somewhat acquainted with Heaney and Heaney had, according to his son, admired O'Toole's work.[117]
In November 2019 the documentary Seamus Heaney and the music of what happens was aired on BBC Two. His wife Marie and his children talked about their family life and read some of the poems he wrote for them. For the first time, Heaney's four brothers remembered their childhood and the shared experiences that inspired many of his poems.[118]
In 2023 The Letters of Seamus Heaney was published, edited by Christopher Reid.[119]