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Seamus Heaney Biography & Facts

Seamus Justin Heaney (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". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world". 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. 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". Early life Heaney was born on 13 April 1939 at the family farmhouse called Mossbawn, between Castledawson and Toomebridge; he was the first of nine children. In 1953, his family moved to Bellaghy, a few miles away, which is now the family home. His father was Patrick Heaney (d. October 1986), a farmer and cattle dealer, and the eighth child of ten born to James and Sarah Heaney. Patrick was introduced to cattle dealing by his uncles, who raised him after his parents' early deaths. Heaney's mother was Margaret Kathleen McCann (1911–1984), whose relatives worked at a local linen mill. Heaney remarked on the inner tension between the rural Gaelic past exemplified by his father and the industrialized Ulster exemplified by his mother. Heaney attended Anahorish Primary School, and won a scholarship to St Columb's College, a Roman Catholic boarding school in Derry when he was twelve years old. While studying at St Columb's, Heaney's younger brother Christopher was killed in February 1953 at the age of four in a road accident. The poems "Mid-Term Break" and "The Blackbird of Glanmore" are related to his brother's death. Heaney played Gaelic football for Castledawson GAC, the club in the area of his birth, as a boy, and did not change to Bellaghy when his family moved there. However, he has remarked that he became involved culturally with Bellaghy GAA Club from his late teens, acting in amateur plays and composing treasure hunts for the club. Career 1957–1969 Heaney studied English Language and Literature at Queen's University Belfast starting in 1957. While there, he found a copy of Ted Hughes's Lupercal, which spurred him to write poetry. "Suddenly, the matter of contemporary poetry was the material of my own life," he said. He graduated in 1961 with a First Class Honours degree. Heaney studied for a teacher certification at St Joseph's Teacher Training College in Belfast (now merged with St Mary's, University College), and began teaching at St Thomas' Secondary Intermediate School in Ballymurphy, Belfast. The headmaster of this school was the writer Michael McLaverty from County Monaghan, who introduced Heaney to the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh. With McLaverty's mentorship, Heaney first started to publish poetry in 1962. Sophia Hillan describes how McLaverty was like a foster father to the younger Belfast poet. In the introduction to McLaverty's Collected Works, Heaney summarised the poet's contribution and influence: "His voice was modestly pitched, he never sought the limelight, yet for all that, his place in our literature is secure." Heaney's poem "Fosterage", in the sequence "Singing School", from North (1975), is dedicated to him. In 1963 Heaney began lecturing at St Joseph's, and joined the Belfast Group, a poets' workshop organized by Philip Hobsbaum, then an English lecturer at Queen's University. Through this, Heaney met other Belfast poets, including Derek Mahon and Michael Longley. Heaney met Marie Devlin, a native of Ardboe, County Tyrone, while at St Joseph's in 1962; they married in August 1965 and would go on to have three children. A school teacher and writer, Devlin published Over Nine Waves (1994), a collection of traditional Irish myths and legends. Heaney's first book, Eleven Poems, was published in November 1965 for the Queen's University Festival. In 1966 their first son, Michael, was born. He earned a living at the time by writing for The Irish Times, often on the subject of radio. A second son, Christopher, was born in 1968. Heaney initially sought publication with Dolmen Press in Dublin for his first volume of work. While waiting to hear back, he was signed with Faber and Faber and published Death of a Naturalist in 1966, and Faber remained his publisher for the rest of his life. This collection was met with much critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Gregory Award for Young Writers and the Geoffrey Faber Prize. The same year, he was appointed as a lecturer in Modern English Literature at Queen's University Belfast. In 1968, Heaney and Michael Longley undertook a reading tour called Room to Rhyme, which increased awareness of the poet's work. The following year, he published his second major volume, Door into the Dark. 1970–1984 Heaney taught as a visiting professor in English at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1970–1971 academic year. In 1972, he left his lectureship at Belfast, moved to Wicklow in the Republic of Ireland, and began writing on a full-time basis. That year, he published his third collection, Wintering Out. In 1975, Heaney's next volume, North, was published. A pamphlet of prose poems entitled Stations was published the same year. In 1976 Heaney was appointed Head of English at Carysfort College in Dublin and moved with his family to the suburb of Sandymount. His next collection, Field Work, was published in 1979. Selected Poems 1965-1975 and Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968–1978 were published in 1980. When Aosdána, the national Irish Arts Council, was established in 1981, Heaney was among those elected into its first group. (He was subsequently elected a Saoi, one of its five elders and its highest honour, in 1997). Also in 1981, Heaney travelled to the United States as a visiting professor at Harvard, where he was affiliated with Adams House. He was awarded two honorary doctorates, from Queen's University and from Fordham University in New.... Discover the Seamus Heaney popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Seamus Heaney books.