Seamus Heaney
Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer (1939–2013)
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Seamus Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright, and translator who lived from 1939 to 2013 and became one of the most celebrated literary figures of his time. His work matters because he brought Irish language, history, and culture to international audiences while exploring universal themes through his distinctive voice and craftsmanship.
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Seamus Justin Heaney, MRIA (/ˈʃeɪməs ˈhiːni/; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer, and the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. In the early 1960s he became a lecturer in Belfast after attending university there, and began to publish poetry. Heaney resided in Sandymount, Dublin from 1972 onward. Heaney became a member of Aosdána when it was formed in 1981 and was elected Saoi in 1997. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Seamus+Heaney
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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, near Castledawson, 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 won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for The Spirit Level (1996) and Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (1999). With Ted Hughes, he edited the anthologies The Rattle Bag (1982) and The School Bag (1997), intended to introduce poetry to young readers.
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1939 births2013 deaths20th-century British essayists20th-century dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland20th-century Irish poets20th-century Irish translators20th-century poets from Northern Ireland20th-century writers from Northern Ireland21st-century British essayists21st-century dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland21st-century poets from Northern Ireland