View source for Seamus Heaney

{{Short description|Irish poet (1939–2013)}}
{{Use Hiberno-English|date=February 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|MRIA}}
| image = Seamus Heaney, Irish poet, brightened (cropped).jpg
| caption = Heaney in 1982
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1939|4|13|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Tamniaran, near [[Castledawson]], County Londonderry, Northern&nbsp;Ireland
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2013|08|30|1939|4|13|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Blackrock, Dublin]], Ireland
| resting_place = [[St. Mary's Church, Bellaghy]], Northern&nbsp;Ireland
| occupation = {{cslist|[[Irish poetry|Poet]]|playwright|translator}}
| alma_mater = [[Queen's University Belfast]]
| period = 1966–2013
| notable_works = {{collapsible list
| title         = List of notable works
| ''[[Death of a Naturalist]]'' (1966)
| ''[[North (poetry collection)|North]]'' (1975)
| ''[[Field Work (poetry collection)|Field Work]]'' (1979)
| ''[[The Spirit Level (poetry collection)|The Spirit Level]]'' (1996)
| ''[[Beowulf: A New Verse Translation]]'' (translation, 1999)
| ''[[District and Circle]]'' (2006)
| ''[[Human Chain (poetry collection)|Human Chain]]'' (2010)}}
| spouse = {{marriage|Marie Devlin|1965}}<ref name="times-obit" /><ref name="guardian-obit">{{Cite web |last=Corcoran |first=Neil |date=30 August 2013 |title=Seamus Heaney obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/30/seamus-heaney |access-date=19 November 2023 |website=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>
| children = 3
| signature = Síniú de chuid Seamus Heaney.png
}}
'''Seamus Justin Heaney''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|MRIA}} (13 April 1939&nbsp;– 30 August 2013) was an Irish [[Irish poetry|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 [[W. B. Yeats|Yeats]]", and many others, including the academic [[John Sutherland (author)|John Sutherland]], have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age".<ref name=bbc_faces_of_the_week/><ref name="sutherland_david_cohen_prize">{{Cite news |last=Sutherland |first=John |date=19 March 2009 |title=Seamus Heaney deserves a lot more than £40,000 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/mar/19/seamus-heaney-david-cohen-prize |access-date=19 April 2010 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> [[Robert Pinsky]] has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller."<ref>Pinsky, Robert. The Eco Press, Hopewell {{ISBN|0-88001-217-X}}</ref> Upon his death in 2013, ''[[The Independent]]'' described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Craig |first=Patricia |date=30 August 2013 |title=Seamus Heaney obituary: Nobel Prize-winning Irish Poet |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/seamus-heaney-obituary-nobel-prizewinning-irish-poet-8791807.html |access-date=30 August 2013 |work=[[The Independent]]}}</ref>

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 Belfast|Queen's University]], and began to publish poetry. He lived in [[Sandymount]], Dublin, from 1976 until his death.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Heaney |first=Seamus |url=https://archive.org/details/openedgroundsele00hean |title=Opened Ground |publisher=Farrar, Straus, and Giroux |year=1998 |isbn=0-374-52678-8 |location=New York |url-access=registration}}</ref> He lived part-time in the United States from 1981 to 2006. He was a professor at [[Harvard University|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 [[University of Oxford|Oxford]]. In 1996 he was made a {{lang|fr|[[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".<ref>{{Cite news |date=14 August 2015 |title=Seamus Heaney: Headstone for poet's grave unveiled |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-33931232 |access-date=12 April 2019 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref>

== Early life ==
{{Quote box
| quote = <poem>
Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

</poem>
| source = from "Mid-Term break", <br />''[[Death of a Naturalist]]'' (1966)
| align = right
| bgcolor = #FFFFF0
| quoted = true
| salign = right
}}
Heaney was born on 13 April 1939 at the family farmhouse called Mossbawn,<ref name="seambio2">{{Cite web |title=Biography of Irish Writer Seamus Heaney |url=http://www.seamusheaney.org/seamus_heaney_biography.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100224114536/http://www.seamusheaney.org/seamus_heaney_biography.html |archive-date=24 February 2010 |access-date=20 February 2010 |publisher=www.seamusheaney.org |quote=Heaney was born on 13th April 1939, the eldest of nine children at the family farm called Mossbawn in the Townland of Tamniarn in Newbridge near Castledawson, Northern Ireland, ...}} Archived at Wayback Engine.</ref> near [[Castledawson]] in [[County Londonderry]]; 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),<ref name="parker-2212">{{Cite book |last=Parker |first=Michael |title=Seamus Heaney: The Making of the Poet |publisher=University of Iowa Press |year=1993 |isbn=0-87745-398-5 |location=Iowa City |page=221 |quote=The deaths of his mother in the autumn of 1984 and of his father in October 1986 left a colossal space, one which he has struggled to fill through poetry.}}</ref> a farmer and cattle dealer, and the eighth child of ten born to James and Sarah Heaney.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Note on Seamus Heaney |url=http://inform.orbitaltec.net/heaney |access-date=20 April 2009 |publisher=inform.orbitaltec.ne |quote=Seamus Heaney was born on 13 April 1939, the first child of Patrick and Margaret Kathleen (née McCann) Heaney, who then lived on a fifty-acre farm called Mossbawn, in the townland of Tamniarn, County Derry, Northern Ireland.}}</ref> Patrick was introduced to cattle dealing by his uncles, who raised him after his parents' early deaths.<ref name="nobel_prize_heaney_biography2">{{Cite web |title=Biography |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1995/heaney/biographical/ |access-date=23 May 2010 |publisher=Nobel Media}}</ref> Heaney's mother was Margaret Kathleen McCann (1911–1984), whose relatives worked at a local [[Linen|linen mill]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Verdonk |first=Peter |title=Stylistics |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2002 |isbn=0-19-437240-5 |location=Oxford |page=57}}</ref><ref name="parker-32">{{Cite book |last=Parker |first=Michael |title=Seamus Heaney: The Making of the Poet |publisher=University of Iowa Press |year=1993 |isbn=0-87745-398-5 |location=Iowa City |page=3 |quote=Mrs Heaney bore nine children, Seamus, Sheena, Ann, Hugh, Patrick, Charles, Colum, Christopher, and Dan.}}</ref><ref name="lifeofrhyme">{{Cite news |last=McCrum |first=Robert |date=18 July 2009 |title=Seamus Heaney: A life of rhyme |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/19/seamus-heaney-interview |access-date=19 July 2009 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> Heaney remarked on the inner tension between the rural Gaelic past exemplified by his father and the industrialized Ulster exemplified by his mother.<ref name="nobel_prize_heaney_biography2" />

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 "[[Death of a Naturalist#"Mid-Term Break"|Mid-Term Break]]" and "[[District and Circle|The Blackbird of Glanmore]]" are related to his brother's death.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Tragic death of brother (4) that inspired Seamus Heaney recalled |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/theatre-arts/tragic-death-of-brother-4-that-inspired-seamus-heaney-recalled-38700247.html |access-date=2 February 2021 |work=belfasttelegraph |issn=0307-1235}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=27 October 1999 |title=Heaney, Seamus: Mid-Term Break |url=http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=1546 |access-date=20 November 2010 |publisher=Litmed.med.nyu.edu}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Carney |first=Jim |author-link=Jim Carney (poet) |date=5 April 2020 |title=Why have football and hurling remained a cultural wasteland for our writers and artists? |url=https://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/why-have-football-and-hurling-remained-a-cultural-wasteland-for-our-writers-and-artists-39103123.html |work=[[Sunday Independent (Ireland)|Sunday Independent]]}}</ref> However, he has remarked that he became involved culturally with [[Bellaghy GAC|Bellaghy GAA Club]] in his late teens, acting in amateur plays and composing treasure hunts for the club.

== Career ==

===1957–1969===
{{further|topic=his works during this period|Death of a Naturalist|Door into the Dark}}
[[File:SeamusHeaneyLowRes.jpg|thumb|upright|Seamus Heaney in 1970]]
{{Quote box |align=right |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right
 |quote =<poem>
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

</poem>
 |source =from "Digging", ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966)}}
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.<ref name="bbc_faces_of_the_week">{{Cite news |date=19 January 2007 |title=Faces of the week |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6279053.stm |access-date=9 April 2010 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref> He graduated in 1961 with a First Class Honours degree.<ref name="YourPlaceAndMine">{{Cite web |title=Your Place and Mine: Bellaghy – Seamus Heaney |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceandmine/londonderry/A803639.shtml |access-date=12 April 2019 |publisher=BBC}}</ref>

Heaney studied for a teacher certification at St Joseph's Teacher Training College in Belfast (now merged with [[St. Mary's University College (Belfast)|St Mary's, University College]]), and began teaching at St Thomas' Secondary Intermediate School in [[Ballymurphy, Belfast]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Heaney |first=Seamus |date=13 April 2002 |title=Sweet airs that delight |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/apr/13/artsandhumanities.highereducation |access-date=1 June 2021 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> The headmaster of this school was the writer [[Michael McLaverty]] from [[County Monaghan]], who introduced Heaney to the poetry of [[Patrick Kavanagh]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Biography |url=http://www.britishcouncil.org/china-aboutuk-northernireland-literature-poetry-seamus.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121009142735/http://www.britishcouncil.org/china-aboutuk-northernireland-literature-poetry-seamus.htm |archive-date=9 October 2012 |access-date=23 May 2010 |publisher=British Council}}</ref><ref name="assets.cambridge.org">[http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/38825/frontmatter/9780521838825_frontmatter.pdf Ed. Bernard O'Donoghue ''The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney'' (2009) Cambridge University Press pxiii] {{ISBN|978-0-521-54755-0}}. Retrieved 23 May 2010.</ref> 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.<ref>Sophia Hillan, ''New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua'', Vol. 9, No. 3 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 86–106. "Wintered into Wisdom: Michael McLaverty, Seamus Heaney, and the Northern Word-Hoard". University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies)</ref> 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."<ref>McLaverty, Michael (2002) ''Collected Short Stories'', Blackstaff Press Ltd, p. xiii, {{ISBN|0-85640-727-5}}.</ref> Heaney's poem "Fosterage", in the sequence "Singing School", from ''[[North (poetry collection)|North]]'' (1975), is dedicated to him.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sophia Hillan |date=20 October 2017 |title=Michael McLaverty, Seamus Heaney and the writerly bond |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/michael-mclaverty-seamus-heaney-and-the-writerly-bond-1.3263062 |newspaper=[[The Irish Times]]}}</ref>

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]].<ref name="YourPlaceAndMine" />

Heaney met Marie Devlin, a native of [[Ardboe]], County Tyrone, while at St Joseph's in 1962; they married in August 1965<ref name="lifeofrhyme" /><ref name="YourPlaceAndMine" /> and would go on to have three children.<ref name="times-obit" /><ref name="guardian-obit" /> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Peter Badge |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SRD2K80JYpYC&pg=PA504 |title=Nobel Faces: A Gallery of Nobel Prize Winners |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2008 |isbn=978-3-527-40678-4 |page=504}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mick Heaney |date=22 January 2021 |title=Don't sweat the big stuff: Top earner Tubridy sticks to small talk |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/don-t-sweat-the-big-stuff-top-earner-tubridy-sticks-to-small-talk-1.4464278 |newspaper=The Irish Times |quote=By way of full disclosure, I need to mention that Tubridy also makes several kind comments about my father, Seamus Heaney, throughout the week.}}</ref> 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.<ref name="assets.cambridge.org" /> 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]]''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Andrew Motion |author-link=Andrew Motion |date=17 August 2014 |title=Door into the Dark opened the portals to a different future |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/17/door-into-the-dark-seamus-heaney-andrew-motion |work=The Guardian}}</ref>

===1970–1984===
{{further|topic=his works during this period|Wintering Out|North (poetry collection)|Field Work (poetry collection)|Selected Poems 1965–1975}}
Heaney taught as a visiting professor in English at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] in the 1970–1971 academic year.<ref name="OShea2016">{{Cite journal |last=O'Shea |first=Edward |year=2016 |title=Seamus Heaney at Berkeley, 1970–71 |journal=Southern California Quarterly |volume=98 |issue=2 |pages=157–193 |doi=10.1525/ucpsocal.2016.98.2.157 |issn=0038-3929}}</ref> In 1972, he left his lectureship in 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]]''. His daughter Catherine Ann was born in 1973.<ref>{{cite web |title= Heaney, Seamus Justin |url= https://www.dib.ie/biography/heaney-seamus-justin-a10036 |author= O'Donoghue, Bernard |work= The Dictionary of Irish Biography |access-date= 31 January 2025}}</ref> In 1975, Heaney's next volume, ''[[North (poetry collection)|North]]'', was published.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Seamus Heaney |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1995/heaney/biographical/ |website=Nobel Prize}}</ref> A pamphlet of prose poems entitled ''[[Stations (poetry collection)|Stations]]'' was published the same year.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Floyd Collins |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zfHKH2HlwbYC&pg=PA76 |title=Seamus Heaney: The Crisis of Identity |publisher=University of Delaware Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-87413-805-4 |page=76}}</ref>

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 (poetry 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).<ref>{{Cite news |title=Biography |url=http://aosdana.artscouncil.ie/Members/Literature/Heaney.aspx |work=Aosdána}}</ref>

Also in 1981, Heaney travelled to the United States as a visiting professor at Harvard, where he was affiliated with [[Adams House (Harvard University)|Adams House]]. He was awarded two honorary doctorates, from Queen's University and from [[Fordham University]] in New York City (1982). At the Fordham commencement ceremony on 23 May 1982, Heaney delivered his address as a 46-stanza poem entitled "Verses for a Fordham Commencement."<ref>{{Cite web |date=30 August 2013 |title=Fordham Notes: Seamus Heaney's "Verses for a Fordham Commencement" |url=http://fordhamnotes.blogspot.com/2013/08/seamus-heaneys-verses-for-fordham.html |access-date=3 November 2016 |website=Fordham Notes}}</ref>

Born and educated in Northern Ireland, Heaney stressed that he was Irish and not British.<ref>{{Cite web |date=30 August 2013 |title=Irish Nobel Prize Poet Seamus Heaney Dies Aged 74 -VIDEO |url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/502601/20130830/seamus-heaney-died-irish-poet.htm |access-date=30 August 2013 |publisher=Ibtimes.co.uk}}</ref> Following the success of the [[Field Day Theatre Company]]'s production of [[Brian Friel]]'s ''[[Translations (play)|Translations]],'' the founders Brian Friel and [[Stephen Rea]] decided to make the company a permanent group. Heaney joined the company's expanded Board of Directors in 1981.<ref>''The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney'', "Heaney in Public" by [[Dennis O'Driscoll]] (p56-72). {{ISBN|0-521-54755-5}}.</ref> In autumn 1984, his mother, Margaret, died.<!-- re [[WP:SEASON]] this should really be "18 October 1984", but unable to find a RS source --><ref name="parker-2212" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Barclay Agency profile |url=http://barclayagency.com/heaney.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120508153854/http://barclayagency.com/heaney.html |archive-date=8 May 2012 |access-date=30 August 2013 |publisher=Barclayagency.com}}</ref> Three years later he would publish eight [[sonnet]]s, under the title ''Clearances'', as a tribute to his mother.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57042/clearances|title=Clearances|website=The Poetry Foundation}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fawbie.info/category/the-haw-lantern/clearances/|title=Clearances by Seamus Heaney - Analysis}}</ref>

===1985–1999===
{{further|topic=his works during this period|Station Island (poetry)|The Haw Lantern|The Cure at Troy|The Spirit Level (poetry collection)}}
[[File:Heaneys.jpg|thumb|right|Marie and Seamus Heaney at the Dominican Church, [[Kraków]], Poland, 4 October 1996]]
Heaney became a tenured faculty member at Harvard, as the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory (formerly visiting professor) 1985–1997, and the [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] Poet in Residence at Harvard 1998–2006.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20101214173915/http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth189 British Council biography of Heaney]. Retrieved 19 April 2010.</ref> In 1986, Heaney received a Litt.D. from [[Bates College]]. His father, Patrick, died in October the same year.<ref name="parker-2212" /> The loss of both parents within two years affected Heaney deeply, and he expressed his grief in poems.<ref name="parker-2212" /> In 1988, a collection of his critical essays, ''The Government of the Tongue'', was published.

In 1985 Heaney wrote the poem "From the Republic of Conscience" at the request of [[Amnesty International]] Ireland. He wanted to "celebrate United Nations Day and the work of Amnesty".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Seamus Heaney, Poet |url=http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/110 |access-date=30 November 2014 |website=Frontline Defenders}}</ref> The poem inspired the title of Amnesty International's highest honour, the [[Ambassador of Conscience Award]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=From the Republic of Conscience |url=http://www.amnesty.ie/RepublicofConscience |access-date=30 November 2014 |publisher=Amnesty International}}</ref>

In 1988 Heaney donated his lecture notes to the Rare Book Library of [[Emory University]] in [[Atlanta]], Georgia, after giving the notable [[Richard Ellmann|Ellmann]] Lectures there.<ref>[http://news.emory.edu/stories/2014/01/er_seamus_heaney_exhibit/campus.html "Seamus Heaney Exhibit"], Emory University, January 2014</ref>

In 1989 Heaney was elected [[Oxford Professor of Poetry]], which he held for a five-year term to 1994. The chair does not require residence in Oxford. Throughout this period, he divided his time between Ireland and the United States. He also continued to give public readings. These events were so well attended and keenly anticipated that those who queued for tickets with such enthusiasm were sometimes dubbed "Heaneyboppers", suggesting an almost [[teenybopper]] fan base.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2 October 2008 |title=Heaney 'catches the heart off guard' |url=http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/10/heaney-%E2%80%98catches-the-heart-off-guard%E2%80%99/ |access-date=15 May 2010 |website=Harvard News Office |publisher=[[Harvard University]] |quote=Over the years, readings by poet Seamus Heaney have been so wildly popular that his fans are called "Heaneyboppers."}}</ref>

In 1990 ''[[The Cure at Troy]]'', a play based on [[Sophocles]]'s ''[[Philoctetes (Sophocles)|Philoctetes]],''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Play Listing |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/search/play.asp?play_id=617 |access-date=24 August 2007 |website=Irish Playography |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute}}</ref> was published. The next year, he published another volume of poetry, ''[[Seeing Things (poetry)|Seeing Things]]'' (1991). Heaney was named an Honorary Patron of the [[University Philosophical Society]], [[Trinity College Dublin]], and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Literature]] (1991).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Royal Society of Literature All Fellows |url=http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100305070326/http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows |archive-date=5 March 2010 |access-date=9 August 2010 |publisher=Royal Society of Literature}}</ref>

In 1993 Heaney guest-edited ''[[The Mays]] Anthology'', a collection of new writing from students at the University of Oxford and [[University of Cambridge]]. That same year, he was awarded the [[Dickinson College]] Arts Award and returned to the Pennsylvania college to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree. He was scheduled to return to Dickinson again to receive the Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Award—for a major literary figure—at the time of his death in 2013. Irish poet [[Paul Muldoon]] was named recipient of the award that year, partly in recognition of the close connection between the two poets.

Heaney was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1995 for "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past".<ref name="nobel_prize">{{Cite web |date=7 October 2010 |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1995 |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1995/ |access-date=7 October 2010 |publisher=Nobelprize}}</ref> He was on holiday in Greece with his wife when the news broke. Neither journalists nor his own children could reach him until he arrived at [[Dublin Airport]] two days later, although an Irish television camera traced him to [[Kalamata]]. Asked how he felt to have his name added to the Irish Nobel pantheon of [[W. B. Yeats]], [[George Bernard Shaw]] and [[Samuel Beckett]], Heaney responded: "It's like being a little foothill at the bottom of a mountain range. You hope you just live up to it. It's extraordinary."<ref name="laureate" /> He and his wife Marie were immediately taken from the airport to [[Áras an Uachtaráin]] for champagne with President [[Mary Robinson]].<ref name="laureate">{{Cite news |last=Clarity |first=James F. |date=9 October 1995 |title=Laureate and Symbol, Heaney Returns Home |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/20/specials/heaney-laureate.html |work=The New York Times}}</ref> He would refer to the prize discreetly as "the N thing" in personal exchanges with others.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Boland |first=Rosita |date=17 June 2017 |title=Michael Longley: 'Being 77 and three-quarters is the best time of my life' |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/michael-longley-being-77-and-three-quarters-is-the-best-time-of-my-life-1.3097831 |access-date=17 June 2017 |newspaper=[[The Irish Times]] |quote='Seamus once thanked me for the way I dealt with what he called 'the N Thing',' Longley says, making tea. 'The N thing?' I ask, halfway through my sardine sandwich. 'The Nobel', he says. 'That I kept it in proportion – the way most of the world didn't. But I have had to be very judicious answering questions about Seamus since he's been turned into a kind of saint'.}}</ref>

Heaney's 1996 collection ''[[The Spirit Level (poetry)|The Spirit Level]]'' won the [[Costa Book Awards|Whitbread Book of the Year Award]]; he repeated the success in 1999 with ''[[Beowulf: A New Verse Translation]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Beowulf: A New Translation |url=http://www.rambles.net/heaney_beowulf.html |access-date=20 November 2010 |publisher=Rambles.net}}</ref>

Heaney was elected a Member of the [[Royal Irish Academy]] in 1996 and was admitted in 1997.<ref>{{Cite web |date=30 August 2013 |title=Seamus Heaney MRIA 1939–2013 – A Very Special Academician |url=http://www.ria.ie/News/Seamus-Heaney-MRIA-1939-2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140426202138/http://www.ria.ie/News/Seamus-Heaney-MRIA-1939-2013 |archive-date=26 April 2014 |access-date=8 September 2013 |publisher=ria.ie}}</ref> In the same year, Heaney was elected [[Saoi]] of [[Aosdána]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=30 August 2013 |title=Seamus Heaney |url=http://aosdana.artscouncil.ie/getdoc/c58ed13b-d56c-4807-8c87-98802d8dd7a9/Heaney.aspx |access-date=8 September 2013 |publisher=aosdána.artscouncil.ie}}</ref> In 1998, Heaney was elected Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Dublin.<ref>{{Cite news |date=17 December 2012 |title=Trinity College Dublin announces new Professorship – Seamus Heaney Professorship in Irish Writing |url=https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/trinity-college-dublin-announces-new-professorship-seamus-heaney-professorship-in-irish-writing/ |work=Trinity College Dublin}}</ref>

===2000s===
[[File:Seamus Heaney Centre.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry]], which was officially opened at [[Queen's University Belfast]] in 2004]]
[[File:Seamus Heaney Photograph Edit.jpg|right|thumb|upright|Seamus Heaney in 2009]]
In 2000 Heaney was awarded an honorary doctorate and delivered the commencement address at the [[University of Pennsylvania]].<ref>[http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/nobel-laureate-seamus-heaney-deliver-commencement-address-university-pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania. Honorary Degree awarded]. Retrieved 19 September 2010.</ref> In 2002, Heaney was awarded an honorary doctorate from [[Rhodes University]] and delivered a public lecture on "The Guttural Muse".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rhodes Department of English Annual Report 2002-2003 |url=http://www.ru.ac.za/publications/Annual_Report_%20inside02-03.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080414062702/http://www.ru.ac.za/publications/Annual_Report_%20inside02-03.pdf |archive-date=14 April 2008 |access-date=18 October 2007}} from the [[Rhodes University]] website.</ref>

In 2003 the [[Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry]] was opened at [[Queen's University Belfast]]. It houses the Heaney Media Archive, a record of Heaney's entire oeuvre, along with a full catalogue of his radio and television presentations.<ref>[http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SeamusHeaneyCentreforPoetry/ The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry], [[Queen's University Belfast]] website</ref> That same year, Heaney decided to lodge a substantial portion of his literary archive at [[Emory University]] as a memorial to the work of [[William Chace|William M. Chace]], the university's recently retired president.<ref>{{Cite web |date=24 September 2003 |title=Emory Acquires Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney Letters |url=http://www.emory.edu/news/Releases/seamus1064430623.html |website=press release |publisher=[[Emory University]] |quote="When I was here this summer for commencement, I came to the decision that the conclusion of President Chace's tenure was the moment of truth, and that I should now lodge a substantial portion of my literary archive in the Woodruff Library, including the correspondence from many of the poets already represented in its special collections," said Heaney in making the announcement. "So I am pleased to say these letters are now here and that even though President Chace is departing, as long as my papers stay here, they will be a memorial to the work he has done to extend the university's resources and strengthen its purpose."}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=25 September 2003 |title=Poet Heaney donates papers to Emory |url=http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2003/09/25/met_391035.shtml |access-date=25 September 2003 |work=[[The Augusta Chronicle]]}}</ref> The Emory papers represented the largest repository of Heaney's work (1964–2003). He donated these to help build their [[Emory University#Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Library (MARBL)|large existing archive]] of material from Irish writers including Yeats, [[Paul Muldoon]], [[Ciaran Carson]], [[Michael Longley]] and other members of the [[Belfast Group]].<ref>[http://marbl.library.emory.edu/conduct-research/online-collections Emory University. Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Book Library (MARBL)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001032200/http://marbl.library.emory.edu/conduct-research/online-collections |date=1 October 2011 }}. Online collection of the [[Belfast Group]] archive.</ref>

In 2003, when asked if there was any figure in popular culture who aroused interest in poetry and lyrics, Heaney praised American rap artist [[Eminem]] from Detroit, saying, "He has created a sense of what is possible. He has sent a voltage around a generation. He has done this not just through his subversive attitude but also his verbal energy."<ref>Eminem, ''The Way I Am'', autobiography, cover sheet. Published 21 October 2008.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=30 June 2003 |title=Seamus Heaney praises Eminem |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3033614.stm |access-date=9 April 2010 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref> Heaney wrote the poem "[[Beacons at Bealtaine]]" to mark the [[Enlargement of the European Union|2004 EU Enlargement]]. He read the poem at a ceremony for the 25 leaders of the enlarged [[European Union]], arranged by the Irish [[Presidency of the Council of the European Union|EU presidency]].

In August 2006 Heaney had a stroke. Although he recovered and joked, "Blessed are the pacemakers" when fitted with a heart monitor,<ref name="belfast">[http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/heaney-bid-farewell-at-funeral-29545558.html "Heaney bid farewell at funeral"], ''Belfast Telegraph'', 2 September 2013.</ref> he cancelled all public engagements for several months.<ref>''Today Programme'', [[BBC Radio 4]], 16 January 2007.</ref> He was in [[County Donegal]] at the time of the 75th birthday of Anne Friel, wife of playwright [[Brian Friel]].<ref name="lifeofrhyme" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=20 July 2009 |title=Poet 'cried for father' after stroke |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8158697.stm |access-date=20 July 2009 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref> He read the works of [[Henning Mankell]], [[Donna Leon]] and [[Robert Harris (novelist)|Robert Harris]] while in hospital. Among his visitors was former President [[Bill Clinton]].<ref name="lifeofrhyme" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Kelly |first=Antoinette |date=19 July 2009 |title=Nobel winner Seamus Heaney recalls secret visit from Bill Clinton: President visit to Heaney's hospital bed after near-fatal stroke |url=http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Nobel-winner-Seamus-Heaney-recalls-secret-visit-from-Bill-Clinton-51137272.html |access-date=19 July 2009 |work=Irish Central}}</ref>

Heaney's ''[[District and Circle]]'' won the 2006 [[T. S. Eliot Prize]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=15 January 2007 |title=Heaney wins TS Eliot poetry prize |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6264699.stm |access-date=15 January 2007 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref> In 2008, he became artist of honour in [[Østermarie]], Denmark, and Seamus Heaney Stræde (street) was named after him. In 2009, Heaney was presented with an Honorary-Life Membership award from the [[University College Dublin]] (UCD) Law Society, in recognition of his remarkable role as a literary figure.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Announcement of Awards |url=http://www.ucd.ie/studyatucd/studentexperience/studentlife/index.html |publisher=University College Dublin}}</ref>

[[Faber and Faber]] published [[Dennis O'Driscoll]]'s book ''[[Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney]]'' in 2008; this has been described as the nearest thing to an autobiography of Heaney.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Estate of Seamus Heaney-Stepping Stones |url=https://www.seamusheaney.com/stepping-stones |access-date=31 December 2021 |website=seamusheaney.com}}</ref> In 2009, Heaney was awarded the [[David Cohen Prize]] for Literature. He recorded a [[Seamus Heaney Collected Poems|spoken word album, over 12 hours long]], of himself reading his poetry collections to commemorate his 70th birthday, which occurred on 13 April 2009.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2 April 2009 |title=Collected Poems: Seamus Heaney |url=http://www.faber.co.uk/work/collected-poems/9780571247073/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100504111822/http://www.faber.co.uk/work/collected-poems/9780571247073/ |archive-date=4 May 2010 |access-date=24 April 2010 |work=Faber and Faber}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=April 2009 |title=Heaney at 70 |url=http://www.rte.ie/heaneyat70/index.html |access-date=25 April 2010 |work=RTÉ}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=April 2009 |title=Seamus Heaney 70th birthday commemorative Irish Times supplement |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/indepth/seamus-heaney/ |access-date=24 April 2010 |newspaper=The Irish Times}}</ref>

===2010s===
He spoke at the [[Féile an Phobail|West Belfast Festival]] in July 2010 in celebration of his mentor, the poet and novelist [[Michael McLaverty]], who had helped Heaney to first publish his poetry.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Féile an Phobail, Festival of the People, 2010 programme |url=http://www.feilebelfast.com/news/august-feile-2010-programme-online/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100823030106/http://www.feilebelfast.com/news/august-feile-2010-programme-online/ |archive-date=23 August 2010 |access-date=12 July 2010 |work=Official website}} Archived at Wayback Engine.</ref>

In September 2010 Faber published ''[[Human Chain (poetry collection)|Human Chain]]'', Heaney's twelfth collection. ''Human Chain'' was awarded the [[Forward Prize|Forward Poetry Prize]] for Best Collection, one of the major poetry prizes Heaney had never previously won, despite having been twice shortlisted.<ref name="benedicte_page_forward_prize">{{Cite news |last=Page |first=Benedicte |date=6 October 2010 |title=Seamus Heaney wins £10k Forward poetry prize for Human Chain |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/06/seamus-heaney-forward-poetry-prize?INTCMP=SRCH |access-date=6 October 2010 |work=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Kellaway |first=Kate |date=22 August 2010 |title=Human Chain by Seamus Heaney |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/22/seamus-heaney-human-chain-faber?INTCMP=SRCH |access-date=22 August 2010 |work=The Observer}}</ref> The book, published 44 years after the poet's first, was inspired in part by Heaney's stroke in 2006, which left him "babyish" and "on the brink". Poet and Forward judge [[Ruth Padel]] described the work as "a collection of painful, honest and delicately weighted poems ... a wonderful and humane achievement."<ref name=benedicte_page_forward_prize/> Writer [[Colm Tóibín]] described ''Human Chain'' as "his best single volume for many years, and one that contains some of the best poems he has written... is a book of shades and memories, of things whispered, of journeys into the underworld, of elegies and translations, of echoes and silences."<ref name="toibin_human_chain">{{Cite news |last=Tóibín |first=Colm |author-link=Colm Tóibín |date=21 August 2010 |title=Human Chain by Seamus Heaney – review |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/21/seamus-heaney-human-chain-review |access-date=21 August 2010 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> In October 2010, the collection was shortlisted for the [[T. S. Eliot Prize]].

Heaney was named one of "Britain's top 300 intellectuals" by ''[[The Observer]]'' in 2011, though the newspaper later published a correction acknowledging that "several individuals who would not claim to be British" had been featured, of which Heaney was one.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Naughton |first=John |date=8 May 2011 |title=Britain's top 300 intellectuals |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/may/08/top-300-british-intellectuals |access-date=8 May 2011 |work=The Observer}}</ref> That same year,<!-- 2011 --> he contributed translations of [[Old Irish]] [[marginalia]] for ''[[Songs of the Scribe]]'', an album by Traditional Singer in Residence of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, [[Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin]].<ref>[http://journalofmusic.com/radar/songs-scribe-sung-padraigin-ni-uallachain "Songs of the Scribe Sung by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin"]. ''Journal of Music''. 6 December 2011.</ref>

In December 2011 Heaney donated his personal literary notes to the [[National Library of Ireland]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Telford |first=Lyndsey |date=21 December 2011 |title=Seamus Heaney declutters home and donates personal notes to National Library |url=http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/arts/seamus-heaney-declutters-home-and-donates-personal-notes-to-national-library-2970392.html |access-date=21 December 2011 |work=Irish Independent}}</ref> Even though he admitted he would likely have earned a fortune by auctioning them, Heaney personally packed up the boxes of notes and drafts and, accompanied by his son Michael, delivered them to the National Library.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Madden |first=Anne |date=22 December 2011 |title=Seamus Heaney's papers go to Dublin, but we don't mind, insists QUB |url=http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/seamus-heaneys-papers-go-to-dublin-but-we-dont-mind-insists-qub-28694856.html |access-date=22 December 2011 |work=Belfast Telegraph}}</ref>

In June 2012 Heaney accepted the [[Griffin Poetry Prize|Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry's Lifetime Recognition Award]] and gave a speech in honour of the award.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Prize |first=Griffin Poetry |date=7 June 2012 |title=2012 – Seamus Heaney |url=http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/awards-and-poets/lifetime-recognition-award/2012-seamus-heaney/ |access-date=1 September 2013 |work=Griffin Poetry Prize}}</ref>

Heaney was compiling a collection of his work in anticipation of ''Selected Poems 1988–2013'' at the time of his death. The selection includes poems and writings from ''Seeing Things'', ''The Spirit Level'', the translation of ''[[Beowulf: A New Verse Translation|Beowulf]]'', ''Electric Light'', ''District and Circle'', and ''Human Chain'' (fall 2014).

In February 2014 [[Emory University]] premiered ''Seamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens'', the first major exhibition to celebrate the life and work of Seamus Heaney since his death.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Seamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens |url=http://web.library.emory.edu/news-events/exhibitions/seamus-heaney-the-music-of-what-happens.html |website=Emory Library}}</ref> The exhibit holds a display of the surface of Heaney's personal writing desk that he used in the 1980s as well as old photographs and personal correspondence with other writers.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Seamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens |url=http://www.atlantaplanit.com/events/event.php?eid=55136 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402101707/http://www.atlantaplanit.com/events/event.php?eid=55136 |archive-date=2 April 2015 |access-date=15 April 2015}}</ref>
Heaney died in August 2013 during the curatorial process of the exhibition. Though the exhibit's original vision to celebrate Heaney's life and work remains at the forefront, there is a small section commemorating his death and its influence.<ref>{{Cite web |date=28 January 2014 |title=Woodruff Library Welcomes Seamus Heaney Exhibit |url=https://emorywheel.com/woodruff-library-welcomes-seamus-heaney-exhibit/}}</ref>

In September 2015 it was announced that Heaney's family would posthumously publish his translation of Book VI of ''[[The Aeneid]]'' in 2016.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Alison Flood |date=10 September 2015 |title=New Seamus Heaney translation to be published next year |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/10/new-seamus-heaney-translation-to-be-published-next-year |website=The Guardian}}</ref>

==Death==
[[File:Seamus Heaney grave 3.jpg|thumb|Heaney's grave at [[St. Mary's Church, Bellaghy]]]]
Seamus Heaney died in the [[Blackrock Clinic]] in Dublin on 30 August 2013, aged 74, following a short illness.<ref name="notice">[http://notices.irishtimes.com/29846330 HEANEY, Seamus : Death notice] ''The Irish Times'', 30 September 2013.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=McGreevy |first=Ronan |date=30 August 2013 |title=Tributes paid to 'keeper of language' Seamus Heaney |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/tributes-paid-to-keeper-of-language-seamus-heaney-1.1510607 |access-date=30 August 2013 |newspaper=The Irish Times}}</ref><ref name="higgins">[http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/higgins-to-lead-mourners-at-funeral-mass-for-poet-29542432.html Higgins to lead mourners at funeral Mass for poet] Sunday Independent, 1 September 2013.</ref> After a fall outside a restaurant in Dublin,<ref name="higgins" /> he entered a hospital for a medical procedure but died at 7:30 the following morning before it took place. His funeral was held in [[Donnybrook, Dublin|Donnybrook]], Dublin, on the morning of 2 September 2013, and he was buried in the evening at [[St. Mary's Church, Bellaghy]] his home village, in the same graveyard as his parents, younger brother, and other family members.<ref name="notice" /><ref>[http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/seamus-heaney-laid-to-rest-in-bellaghy-1.1513785 "Seamus Heaney laid to rest in Bellaghy"], ''Irish Times'', 2 September 2013.</ref> His son Michael revealed at the funeral mass that his father texted his final words, "''Noli timere''" (Latin: "Be not afraid"), to his wife, Marie, minutes before he died.<ref name="belfast" /><ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/02/seamus-heaney-last-words-funeral "Seamus Heaney's last words were 'Noli timere', son tells funeral"], ''The Guardian'', 2 September 2013.</ref><ref>Heaney, Mick (12 September 2015) [http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/mick-heaney-my-father-s-famous-last-words-1.2348525 "Mick Heaney: My father's famous last words; Seamus Heaney's son writes about his father's final message to his family: 'Noli timere'"], ''The Irish Times''.</ref>

His funeral was broadcast live the following day on [[RTÉ]] television and radio and was streamed internationally at RTÉ's website. [[RTÉ Radio 1 Extra]] transmitted a continuous broadcast, from 8 a.m. to 9:15&nbsp;p.m. on the day of the funeral, of his ''[[Seamus Heaney Collected Poems|Collected Poems]]'' album, recorded by Heaney in 2009.<ref>[http://www.thejournal.ie/seamus-heaney-funeral-1063647-Sep2013/ "Funeral of Seamus Heaney to be broadcast live on RTÉ"], TheJournal.ie, 1 September 2013.</ref> His poetry collections sold out rapidly in Irish bookshops immediately following his death.<ref>[http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/heaney-books-sell-out-amid-massive-demand-1.1517133 "Heaney books sell out amid massive demand"], ''Irish Times'', 5 September 2013.</ref>

Many tributes were paid to Heaney. President [[Michael D. Higgins]] said:
{{blockquote|...we in Ireland will once again get a sense of the depth and range of the contribution of Seamus Heaney to our contemporary world, but what those of us who have had the privilege of his friendship and presence will miss is the extraordinary depth and warmth of his personality...Generations of Irish people will have been familiar with Seamus' poems. Scholars all over the world will have gained from the depth of the critical essays, and so many rights organisations will want to thank him for all the solidarity he gave to the struggles within the republic of conscience.<ref>[http://www.president.ie/uncategorized/statement-from-aras-an-uachtarain-seamus-heaney/ Statement from Áras an Uachtaráin – Seamus Heaney] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140525232149/http://www.president.ie/uncategorized/statement-from-aras-an-uachtarain-seamus-heaney/ |date=25 May 2014 }} Áras an Uachtaráin, 30 August 2013.</ref>}}President Higgins also appeared live from [[Áras an Uachtaráin]] on the [[RTÉ News: Nine O'Clock|''Nine O'Clock News'']] in a five-minute segment in which he paid tribute to Seamus Heaney.<ref>{{YouTube|_RB3Agnpz14|President Michael D Higgins pays tribute to his friend Seamus Heaney}} RTÉ News, 31 August 2013.</ref>

[[Bill Clinton]], former President of the United States, said:
{{blockquote|Both his stunning work and his life were a gift to the world. His mind, heart, and his uniquely Irish gift for language made him our finest poet of the rhythms of ordinary lives and a powerful voice for peace...His wonderful work, like that of his fellow Irish Nobel Prize winners Shaw, Yeats, and Beckett, will be a lasting gift for all the world.<ref name="tributes-bbc">[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-23899646 Tributes to Seamus Heaney], BBC News Northern Ireland, 30 August 2013.</ref>}}

[[José Manuel Barroso]], European Commission president, said:
{{blockquote|I am greatly saddened today to learn of the death of Seamus Heaney, one of the great European poets of our lifetime. ... The strength, beauty and character of his words will endure for generations to come and were rightly recognised with the Nobel Prize for Literature.<ref name="tributes-bbc" />}}Harvard University issued a statement: {{blockquote|We are fortunate and proud to have counted Seamus Heaney as a revered member of the Harvard family. For us, as for people around the world, he epitomised the poet as a wellspring of humane insight and artful imagination, subtle wisdom and shining grace. We will remember him with deep affection and admiration.<ref name="tributes-bbc" />}}

Poet [[Michael Longley]], a close friend of Heaney, said: "I feel like I've lost a brother."<ref name=bbc_death/> [[Thomas Kinsella]] said he was shocked, but [[John Montague (poet)|John Montague]] said he had known for some time that the poet was not well.<ref>{{Cite news |date=30 August 2013 |title=President and Taoiseach lead tributes to the late Seamus Heaney: Tributes paid to the Nobel Laureate who died this morning at the age of 74 |url=http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books-arts/president-and-taoiseach-lead-tributes-to-the-late-seamus-heaney-29539156.html |access-date=30 August 2013 |work=Irish Independent}}</ref> Playwright [[Frank McGuinness]] called Heaney "the greatest Irishman of my generation: he had no rivals."<ref name="guardian_tributes">{{Cite news |last1=Higgins |first1=Charlotte |last2=McDonald |first2=Henry |date=30 August 2013 |title=Seamus Heaney's death 'leaves breach in language itself': Tributes flow in from fellow writers after poet who won Nobel prize for literature dies in Dublin aged 74 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/30/seamus-heaney-death-breach-language |access-date=30 August 2013 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> [[Colm Tóibín]] wrote: "In a time of burnings and bombings Heaney used poetry to offer an alternative world."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Tóibín |first=Colm |author-link=Colm Tóibín |date=30 August 2013 |title=Seamus Heaney's books were events in our lives |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/30/seamus-heaney-books-poetry-colm-toibin |access-date=30 August 2013 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> [[Gerald Dawe]] said he was "like an older brother who encouraged you to do the best you could do".<ref name=guardian_tributes/> [[Theo Dorgan]] said, "[Heaney's] work will pass into permanence. Everywhere I go there is real shock at this. Seamus was one of us." His publisher, [[Faber and Faber]], noted that "his impact on literary culture is immeasurable."<ref>{{Cite news |date=30 August 2013 |title=Heaney deserves place among the pantheon, says Dorgan |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/heaney-deserves-place-among-the-pantheon-says-dorgan-1.1510770 |access-date=30 August 2013 |newspaper=The Irish Times}}</ref> Playwright [[Tom Stoppard]] said, "Seamus never had a sour moment, neither in person nor on paper".<ref name=guardian_tributes/> [[Andrew Motion]], a former [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|UK Poet Laureate]] and friend of Heaney, called him "a great poet, a wonderful writer about poetry, and a person of truly exceptional grace and intelligence."<ref name="bbc_death">{{Cite news |date=30 August 2013 |title=Poet Seamus Heaney dies aged 74 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23898891 |access-date=30 August 2013 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref>

Many memorial events were held, including a commemoration at Emory University,<ref>{{Cite web |date=23 September 2014 |title=Emory honors literary icon with 'A Tribute to Seamus Heaney' |url=http://news.emory.edu/stories/2014/09/er_heaney_tribute_coverage/campus.html |access-date=15 April 2015}}</ref> Harvard University, Oxford University and the [[Southbank Centre]], London.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Tribute To Seamus Heaney |date=27 September 2013 |url=http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/a-tribute-to-seamus-heaney-79180 |access-date=15 April 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=7 November 2013 |title=Seamus Heaney: A Memorial Celebration |url=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX2zUbI8KMjUKvCOQioXDxpX9tZnPydko |access-date=18 December 2022 |via=YouTube}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=8 November 2013 |title=A poet's own epitaphs |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/11/a-poets-own-epitaphs/ |access-date=4 November 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Bodleian Library – SPECIAL EVENT: Oxford Tribute to Seamus Heaney |url=http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bodley/whats-on/upcoming-events/2014/feb/oxford-tribute-to-seamus-heaney |access-date=15 April 2015}}</ref> Leading US poetry organisations also met in New York to commemorate the death.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Poets Gather to Remember Seamus Heaney in New York City on 11 November at 7:00 p.m. |url=http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/stanza/poets-gather-remember-seamus-heaney-new-york-city-november-11-700-pm |access-date=15 April 2015}}</ref>

==Work==
{{Quote box |width=300px|align=right|quoted=true|bgcolor=#FFFFF0|salign=left|quote =

In order that human beings bring about the most radiant conditions for themselves to inhabit, it is essential that the vision of reality which poetry offers should be transformative, more than just a printout of the given circumstances of its time and place. The poet who would be most the poet has to attempt an act of writing that outstrips the conditions even as it observes them.

|source =—from "''Joy Or Night: Last Things in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats and Philip Larkin''", W. D. Thomas Memorial Lecture delivered by Seamus Heaney at University College of Swansea on 18 January 1993.}}

===Naturalism===
At one time Heaney's books made up two-thirds of the sales of living poets in the UK.<ref name=bbc_faces_of_the_week/> His work often deals with the local surroundings of Ireland, particularly in Northern Ireland, where he was born and lived until young adulthood. Speaking of his early life and education, he commented, "I learned that my local County Derry experience, which I had considered archaic and irrelevant to 'the modern world', was to be trusted. They taught me that trust and helped me to articulate it."<ref name=poetry_foundation/> ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966) and ''Door into the Dark'' (1969) mostly focus on the details of rural, parochial life.<ref name=poetry_foundation/>

In a number of volumes, beginning with ''Door into the Dark'' (1969) and ''Wintering Out'' (1972), Heaney also spent a significant amount of time writing on the northern Irish bog. Particularly of note is the collection of bog body poems in [[North (poetry collection)|''North'']] (1975), featuring mangled bodies preserved in the bog. In a review by Ciaran Carson, he said that the bog poems made Heaney into "the laureate of violence—a mythmaker, an anthropologist of ritual killing...the world of megalithic doorways and charming noble barbarity."<ref>{{Cite book |last=O'Donoghue |first=Bernard |title=The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney |date=2009 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=4}}</ref> Poems such as "Bogland" and "Bog Queen" addressed political struggles directly for the first time.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Irene Gilsenan Nordin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0LZlAAAAMAAJ |title=The body and desire in contemporary Irish poetry |publisher=Irish Academic Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7165-3368-9 |page=5}}</ref>

===Politics===
Allusions to sectarian differences, widespread in Northern Ireland throughout his lifetime, can be found in his poems.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ciarán O'Rourke |date=10 October 2020 |title=Did Seamus Heaney Write Political Poems? |url=https://independentleft.ie/seamus-heaney-political-poems/ |website=[[Independent Left (Ireland)]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ezgi Ustundag |title=Expressing Humanity During 'The Troubles:' The Poetry of Seamus Heaney |url=https://trinity.duke.edu/node/1637 |website=[[Duke University]]}}</ref> His books ''Wintering Out'' (1973) and ''North'' (1975) seek to interweave commentary on [[the Troubles]] with a historical context and wider human experience.<ref name="poetry_foundation">{{Cite news |title=Biography |url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/seamus-heaney |work=Poetry Foundation}}</ref> While some critics accused Heaney of being "an apologist and a mythologiser" of the violence, [[Blake Morrison]] suggests the poet {{blockquote|has written poems directly about the Troubles as well as elegies for friends and acquaintances who have died in them; he has tried to discover a historical framework in which to interpret the current unrest; and he has taken on the mantle of public spokesman, someone looked to for comment and guidance... Yet he has also shown signs of deeply resenting this role, defending the right of poets to be private and apolitical, and questioning the extent to which poetry, however "committed", can influence the course of history.<ref name=poetry_foundation/>
}}

Shaun O'Connell in the ''New Boston Review'' notes that "those who see Seamus Heaney as a symbol of hope in a troubled land are not, of course, wrong to do so, though they may be missing much of the undercutting complexities of his poetry, the backwash of ironies which make him as bleak as he is bright."<ref name=poetry_foundation/> O'Connell notes in his ''Boston Review'' critique of ''[[Station Island (poetry collection)|Station Island]]'':
{{blockquote|Again and again Heaney pulls back from political purposes; despite its emblems of savagery, ''Station Island'' lends no rhetorical comfort to Republicanism. Politic about politics, ''Station Island'' is less about a united Ireland than about a poet seeking religious and aesthetic unity.<ref>{{Cite news |last=O'Connell |first=Shaun |date=1 February 1985 |title=Station Island, Seamus Heaney |url=http://new.bostonreview.net/BR10.1/heaney.html |access-date=2 October 2010 |work=Boston Review}}</ref>}}

Heaney is described by critic [[Terry Eagleton]] as "an enlightened cosmopolitan liberal",<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Eagleton |first=Terry |date=11 November 1999 |title=Terry Eagleton reviews 'Beowulf' translated by Seamus Heaney · ''LRB'' 11 November 1999 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n22/terry-eagleton/hasped-and-hooped-and-hirpling |journal=London Review of Books |publisher=Lrb.co.uk |volume=21 |issue=22 |access-date=30 August 2013}}</ref> refusing to be drawn. Eagleton suggests: "When the political is introduced... it is only in the context of what Heaney will or will not say."<ref name="the_guardian_robert_potts_2001">{{Cite news |last=Potts |first=Robert |date=7 April 2001 |title=The view from Olympia |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/apr/07/poetry.tseliotprizeforpoetry2001 |access-date=7 April 2001 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> Reflections on what Heaney identifies as "tribal conflict"<ref name=the_guardian_robert_potts_2001/> favour the description of people's lives and their voices, drawing out the "psychic landscape". His collections often recall the assassinations of his family members and close friends, lynchings and bombings. [[Colm Tóibín]] wrote, "throughout his career there have been poems of simple evocation and description. His refusal to sum up or offer meaning is part of his tact."<ref name=toibin_human_chain/>

Heaney published "Requiem for the [[Croppy|Croppies]]", a poem that commemorates the Irish rebels of 1798, on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 [[Easter Rising]]. He read the poem to both Catholic and Protestant audiences in Ireland. He commented, "To read 'Requiem for the Croppies' wasn't to say 'up the [[Irish Republican Army|IRA]]' or anything. It was silence-breaking rather than rabble-rousing."<ref name="sameer_rahim_70th_birthday_interview">{{Cite news |last=Rahim |first=Sameer |date=11 May 2009 |title=Interview with Seamus Heaney: On the eve of his 70th birthday, Seamus Heaney tells Sameer Rahim about his lifetime in poetry – and who he thinks would make a good poet laureate |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/5132022/Interview-with-Seamus-Heaney.html |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/5132022/Interview-with-Seamus-Heaney.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |access-date=20 November 2010 |work=The Daily Telegraph |location=London}}{{cbignore}}</ref> He stated, "You don't have to love it. You just have to permit it."<ref name=sameer_rahim_70th_birthday_interview/>

He turned down the offer of [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|laureateship of the United Kingdom]], partly for political reasons, commenting, "I've nothing against the Queen personally: I had lunch at [[Buckingham Palace|the Palace]] once upon a time."<ref name=sameer_rahim_70th_birthday_interview/> He stated that his "cultural starting point" was "off-centre".<ref name=sameer_rahim_70th_birthday_interview/> A much-quoted statement was when he objected to being included in ''[[The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry]]'' (1982). Although he was born in Northern Ireland, his response to being included in the British anthology was delivered in his poem "An Open Letter":
<poem>
:Don't be surprised if I demur, for, be advised
:My passport's green.
:No glass of ours was ever raised
:To toast The Queen.<ref name=sameer_rahim_70th_birthday_interview/>
</poem>

===Translation===
He was concerned, as a poet and a translator, with the English language as it is spoken in Ireland but also as spoken elsewhere and in other times; he explored [[Old English|Anglo-Saxon]] influences in his work and study. Critic [[W. S. Di Piero]] noted {{blockquote|Whatever the occasion, childhood, farm life, politics and culture in Northern Ireland, other poets past and present, Heaney strikes time and again at the taproot of language, examining its genetic structures, trying to discover how it has served, in all its changes, as a culture bearer, a world to contain imaginations, at once a rhetorical weapon and nutriment of spirit. He writes of these matters with rare discrimination and resourcefulness, and a winning impatience with received wisdom.<ref name=poetry_foundation/>}} Heaney's first translation was of the Irish lyric poem ''[[Buile Shuibhne|Buile Suibhne]]'', published as ''Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish'' (1984). He took up this character and connection in poems published in ''Station Island'' (1984). Heaney's prize-winning translation of ''[[Beowulf: A New Verse Translation|Beowulf]]'' (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000, Whitbread Book of the Year Award) was considered groundbreaking in its use of modern language melded with the original Anglo-Saxon "music".<ref name=poetry_foundation/>

===Plays and prose===
His plays include ''The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes'' (1991). Heaney's 2004 play, ''[[The Burial at Thebes]],'' suggests parallels between [[Creon of Thebes|Creon]] and the foreign policies of the [[Presidency of George W. Bush|Bush administration]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=McElroy |first=Steven |date=21 January 2007 |title=The Week Ahead: Jan. 21 – 27 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/arts/21weekahead.html |access-date=21 January 2007 |work=The New York Times}}</ref>

Heaney's engagement with poetry as a necessary engine for cultural and personal change is reflected in his prose works ''The Redress of Poetry'' (1995) and ''[[Finders Keepers (Heaney collection)|Finders Keepers: Selected Prose: 1971–2001]]'' (2001).<ref name=poetry_foundation/>
{{blockquote|"When a poem rhymes," Heaney wrote, "when a form generates itself, when a metre provokes consciousness into new postures, it is already on the side of life. When a rhyme surprises and extends the fixed relations between words, that in itself protests against necessity. When language does more than enough, as it does in all achieved poetry, it opts for the condition of overlife, and rebels at limit."<ref name=toibin_human_chain/>}}He continues: "The vision of reality which poetry offers should be transformative, more than just a printout of the given circumstances of its time and place".<ref name=toibin_human_chain/> Often overlooked and underestimated in the direction of his work is his profound poetic debts to and critical engagement with 20th-century Eastern European poets, and in particular Nobel laureate [[Czesław Miłosz]].<ref>Kay, Magdalena. ''In Gratitude for all the Gifts: Seamus Heaney and Eastern Europe.'' University of Toronto Press, 2012. {{ISBN|1-4426-4498-2}}</ref>

===Use in the school syllabus===
Heaney's work is used extensively in the school syllabus internationally, including the anthologies ''The Rattle Bag'' (1982) and ''The School Bag'' (1997) (both edited with [[Ted Hughes]]). Originally entitled ''The Faber Book of Verse for Younger People'' on the Faber contract, Hughes and Heaney decided the main purpose of ''The Rattle Bag'' was to offer enjoyment to the reader: "Arbitrary riches." Heaney commented "the book in our heads was something closer to ''The Fancy Free Poetry Supplement''".<ref name=bags_of_enlightenment/> It included work that they would have liked to encounter sooner in their own lives, as well as nonsense rhymes, ballad-type poems, riddles, folk songs and rhythmical jingles. Much familiar canonical work was not included, since they took it for granted that their audience would know the standard fare. Fifteen years later, ''The School Bag'' aimed at something different. The foreword stated that they wanted "less of a carnival, more like a checklist." It included poems in English, Irish, Welsh, Scots and Scots Gaelic, together with work reflecting the African-American experience.<ref name="bags_of_enlightenment">{{Cite news |last=Heaney |first=Seamus |date=25 October 2003 |title=Bags of enlightenment |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/25/poetry.highereducation |access-date=25 October 2003 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> <!--Two of his poems entitled "Storm on the Island" and "Follower" feature on the new [[GCSE]] English Literature course as part of the anthology poetry cluster. His poem "Out of the Bag" is featured in the new [[A-Level]] English Literature course as part of the anthology poetry cluster. REMOVED AS UNCITED-->

==Legacy==

The [[Seamus Heaney HomePlace]], in Bellaghy, is a literary and arts centre which commemorates Heaney's legacy.<ref>[http://www.irishnews.com/photos/videodiaries/2018/05/16/news/video-seamus-heaney-homeplace-1331526/ video tribute].</ref> 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.<ref name="Gu_171114_SHeaney_bio_FOT">{{Cite news |last=Flood |first=Alison |date=14 November 2017 |title=Seamus Heaney's biographer races to see poet's faxes before they fade |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/14/seamus-heaneys-biographer-races-to-see-poets-faxes-before-they-fade |access-date=23 September 2021 |work=The Guardian}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BBC Two – Seamus Heaney and the music of what happens |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bxwv |publisher=BBC}}</ref>

In 2022, ''The Translations of Seamus Heaney'' was published, edited by Marco Sonzogni.

In 2023, ''The Letters of Seamus Heaney'' was published, edited by [[Christopher Reid (writer)|Christopher Reid]].<ref>[https://literaryreview.co.uk/burdens-of-a-nobel-laureate ''literary Review'', "Burdens of a Nobel Laureate"] October 2023</ref>

In 2025, ''The Poems of Seamus Heaney'' will be published, edited by [[Bernard O'Donoghue]] and [[Rosie Lavan]]. It encompasses all the poems Heaney published in his lifetime as well as the small number that appeared after his death: twelve single volumes, from Death of a Naturalist (1966) to Human Chain (2010), and those poems published in pamphlets, journals and magazines or with limited circulation. In addition, the book includes a small selection of previously unseen material.<ref>[https://www.faber.co.uk/journal/faber-to-publish-the-poems-of-seamus-heaney/ Faber]</ref>

==Publications==
{{div col}}

===Poetry: Main Collections===
* 1966: ''[[Death of a Naturalist]]'', [[Faber & Faber]]
* 1969: ''[[Door into the Dark]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1972: ''[[Wintering Out]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1975: ''[[North (poetry collection)|North]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1979: ''[[Field Work (poetry collection)|Field Work]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1984: ''[[Station Island (poetry collection)|Station Island]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1987: ''[[The Haw Lantern]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1991: ''[[Seeing Things (poetry collection)|Seeing Things]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1996: ''[[The Spirit Level (poetry collection)|The Spirit Level]]'', Faber & Faber
* 2001: ''[[Electric Light (poetry collection)|Electric Light]]'', Faber & Faber
* 2006: ''[[District and Circle]]'', Faber & Faber
* 2010: ''[[Human Chain (poetry collection)|Human Chain]]'', Faber & Faber

===Poetry: Selected Editions===
* 1980: ''[[Selected Poems 1965–1975]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1990: ''[[New Selected Poems 1966–1987]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1998: ''[[Opened Ground: Poems 1966–1996]]'', Faber & Faber
* 2014: ''[[New Selected Poems 1988–2013]]'', Faber & Faber
* 2018: ''[[100 Poems]]'', Faber & Faber
* 2025: ''The Poems of Seamus Heaney'', Faber & Faber

===Prose: Main Collections===
* 1980: ''Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968–1978'', Faber & Faber
* 1988: ''The Government of the Tongue'', Faber & Faber
* 1995: ''The Redress of Poetry: Oxford Lectures'', Faber & Faber
* 2008: ''Stepping Stones: Interviews With Seamus Heaney'', Faber & Faber
* 2023: ''The Letters of Seamus Heaney'', Faber & Faber

===Prose: Selected Editions===
* 2001: ''[[Finders Keepers (Heaney collection)|Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971–2001]]'', Faber & Faber

===Plays===
* 1990: ''[[The Cure at Troy|The Cure at Troy: A version of Sophocles' Philoctetes]]'', [[Field Day Theatre Company|Field Day]]
* 2004: ''[[The Burial at Thebes|The Burial at Thebes: A version of Sophocles' Antigone]]'', Faber & Faber

===Translations===
* 1983: ''[[Sweeney Astray|Sweeney Astray: A version from the Irish]]'', Field Day
* 1992: ''[[Sweeney's Flight]]'' (with [[Rachel Giese]], photographer), Faber & Faber
* 1993: ''The Midnight Verdict'': Translations from the Irish of [[Brian Merriman]] and from the ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' of [[Ovid]], [[Gallery Press]]
* 1995: ''[[Laments (Kochanowski)|Laments]]'', a cycle of Polish Renaissance elegies by [[Jan Kochanowski]], translated with [[Stanisław Barańczak]], Faber & Faber
* 1999: ''[[Beowulf: A New Verse Translation]]'', Faber & Faber
* 1999: ''Diary of One Who Vanished'', a song cycle by [[Leoš Janáček]] of poems by [[Ozef Kalda]], Faber & Faber
* 2009: ''The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables'', Faber & Faber
* 2016:  ''Aeneid: Book VI'', Faber & Faber<ref>Excerpt: {{Cite magazine |last=Virgil |date=7 March 2016 |others=Translated by Seamus Heaney |title=From "The Aeneid" Book VI |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/from-the-aeneid-book-vi <!-- |access-date=17 January 2017--> |magazine=The New Yorker |pages=27 |volume=92 |issue=4}}</ref>
* 2022: ''The Translations of Seamus Heaney'', Faber & Faber

===Limited Editions and Booklets (poetry, prose, and translations)===
* 1965: ''Eleven Poems'', Queen's University
* 1968: ''The Island People'', BBC
* 1968: ''Room to Rhyme'', Arts Council N.I.
* 1969: ''A Lough Neagh Sequence'', Phoenix
* 1970: ''Night Drive'', Gilbertson
* 1970: ''A Boy Driving His Father to Confession'', Sceptre Press
* 1973: ''Explorations'', BBC
* 1975: ''Stations'', Ulsterman Publications
* 1975: ''Bog Poems'', Rainbow Press
* 1975: ''The Fire i' the Flint'', [[Oxford University Press]]
* 1976: ''Four Poems'', Crannog Press
* 1977: ''Glanmore Sonnets'', Editions Monika Beck
* 1977: ''In Their Element'', Arts Council N.I.
* 1978: ''Robert Lowell: A Memorial Address and an Elegy'', Faber & Faber
* 1978: ''The Makings of a Music'', [[University of Liverpool]]
* 1978: ''After Summer'', Gallery Press
* 1979: ''Hedge School'', Janus Press
* 1979: ''Ugolino'', Carpenter Press
* 1979: ''Gravities'', Charlotte Press
* 1979: ''A Family Album'', Byron Press
* 1980: ''Toome'', [[National College of Art and Design]]
* 1981: ''Sweeney Praises the Trees'', Henry Pearson
* 1982: ''A Personal Selection'', [[Ulster Museum]]
* 1982: ''Poems and a Memoir'', Limited Editions Club
* 1983: ''An Open Letter'', Field Day
* 1983: ''Among Schoolchildren'', Queen's University
* 1984: ''Verses for a Fordham Commencement'', Nadja Press
* 1984: ''Hailstones'', Gallery Press
* 1985: ''From the Republic of Conscience'', [[Amnesty International]]
* 1985: ''Place and Displacement'', Dove Cottage
* 1985: ''Towards a Collaboration'', Arts Council N.I.
* 1986: ''Clearances'', Cornamona Press
* 1988: ''Readings in Contemporary Poetry'', DIA Art Foundation
* 1988: ''The Sounds of Rain'', [[Emory University]]
* 1988: ''The Dark Wood'', Colin Smythe
* 1989: ''An Upstairs Outlook'', [[Linen Hall Library]]
* 1989: ''The Place of Writing'', Emory University
* 1990: ''The Tree Clock'', Linen Hall Library
* 1991: ''Squarings'', Hieroglyph Editions
* 1992: ''Dylan the Durable'', [[Bennington College]]
* 1992: ''The Gravel Walks'', [[Lenoir Rhyne College]]
* 1992: ''The Golden Bough'', Bonnefant Press
* 1993: ''Keeping Going'', Bow and Arrow Press
* 1993: ''Joy or Night'', [[University of Swansea]]
* 1994: ''Extending the Alphabet'', [[Memorial University of Newfoundland]]
* 1994: ''Speranza in Reading'', [[University of Tasmania]]
* 1995: ''Oscar Wilde Dedication'', [[Westminster Abbey]]
* 1995: ''Charles Montgomery Monteith'', [[All Souls College]]
* 1995: ''Crediting Poetry: The Nobel Lecture'', Gallery Press
* 1996: ''Commencement Address'', [[UNC Chapel Hill]]
* 1997: ''Poet to Blacksmith'', Pim Witteveen
* 1997: ''An After Dinner Speech'', Atlantic Foundation
* 1998: ''Audenesque'', Maeght
* 1999: ''The Light of the Leaves'', Bonnefant Press
* 1999: ''Ballynahinch Lake'', Sonzogni
* 2001: ''Something to Write Home About'', [[Flying Fox]]
* 2001: ''Towers, Trees, Terrors'', [[Università degli Studi di Urbino]]
* 2002: ''The Whole Thing: on the Good of Poetry'', The Recorder
* 2002: ''Hope and History'', [[Rhodes University]]
* 2002: ''A Keen for the Coins'', Lenoir Rhyne College
* 2002: ''Hallaig'', Sorley MacLean Trust
* 2002: ''Arion'', a poem by [[Alexander Pushkin]], translated from Russian, with a note by Olga Carlisle, [[Arion Press]]
* 2003: ''Eclogues in Extremis'', [[Royal Irish Academy]]
* 2003: ''Squarings'', Arion Press
* 2004: ''Anything can Happen'', Town House Publishers
* 2004: ''Room to Rhyme'', [[University of Dundee]]
* 2004: ''[[The Testament of Cresseid]]'', Enitharmon Press
* 2004: ''Columcille The Scribe'', The Royal Irish Academy
* 2005: ''A Tribute to Michael McLaverty'', Linen Hall Library
* 2005: ''The Door Stands Open'', Irish Writers Centre
* 2005: ''A Shiver'', Clutag Press
* 2007: ''The Riverbank Field'', Gallery Press
* 2008: ''Articulations'', Royal Irish Academy
* 2008: ''One on a Side'', Robert Frost Foundation
* 2009: ''Spelling It Out'', Gallery Press
* 2010: ''Writer & Righter'', [[Irish Human Rights Commission]]
* 2012: ''Stone From Delphi'', Arion Press
* 2013: ''The Last Walk'', Gallery Press
* 2019: ''My Yeats'', Yeats Society Sligo

===Spoken word===
* 2009: [[Seamus Heaney Collected Poems|''Collected Poems'']] (audio recording by Heaney), [[RTÉ]] with the [[Lannan Foundation]]
{{div col end}}

==Prizes and honours==
{{div col}}
* 1966 [[Eric Gregory Award]]<ref>[https://www.societyofauthors.org/Prizes/Authors-Awards/Poetry/Eric-Gregory/Past-winners ''Past Winners of the Eric Gregory Award''], [[The Society of Authors]].</ref>
* 1967 [[Cholmondeley Award]]<ref>[https://www.societyofauthors.org/Prizes/Poetry/Cholmondeley/Past-winners ''Past winners of the Cholmondeley Awards''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423030851/https://www.societyofauthors.org/Prizes/Poetry/Cholmondeley/Past-winners |date=23 April 2019 }}, The Society of Authors.</ref>
* 1968 [[Somerset Maugham Award]]
* 1968 [[Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize]]<ref>[https://www.foyles.co.uk/geoffrey-faber-memorial-prize ''The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423013946/https://www.foyles.co.uk/geoffrey-faber-memorial-prize |date=23 April 2019 }}, [[W & G Foyle Ltd.]]</ref>
* 1975 [[E. M. Forster Award]]<ref>[http://artsandletters.org/?s=seamus+heaney&restype=all ''Seamus Heaney''], [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]].</ref>
* 1975 [[Duff Cooper Prize]] for ''[[North (poetry collection)|North]]''<ref>[http://www.theduffcooperprize.org/past-duff-cooper-prize-winners/3 ''Past Winners of the Duff Cooper Prize''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423123104/http://www.theduffcooperprize.org/past-duff-cooper-prize-winners/3 |date=23 April 2019 }}, theduffcooperprize.org</ref>
* 1995 [[Nobel Prize in Literature]]<ref name="times-obit">{{Cite web |date=30 August 2013 |title=Obituary: Heaney 'the most important Irish poet since Yeats' |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/obituary-heaney-the-most-important-irish-poet-since-yeats-1.1510684 |website=[[Irish Times]]}}</ref>
* 1996 Commandeur de l'[[Ordre des Arts et des Lettres]]<ref name="times-obit" />
* 1997 Elected [[Saoi]] of [[Aosdána]]<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lynch |first=Brian |date=30 August 2013 |title=Heaney's gift of seeing beauty in everything |url=http://www.independent.ie/incoming/poet-brian-lynch-heaneys-gift-of-seeing-beauty-in-everything-29539346.html |access-date=23 April 2019 |work=[[Irish Independent]]}}</ref>
* 1998 [[St. Louis Literary Award]] from the [[Saint Louis University]] Library Associates<ref>{{Cite web |title=Saint Louis Literary Award &#124; Saint Louis University |url=http://www.slu.edu/libraries/associates/award.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160823003924/http://www.slu.edu/libraries/associates/award.html |archive-date=23 August 2016 |access-date=25 July 2016 |website=slu.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Saint Louis University Library Associates |title=Recipients of the Saint Louis Literary Award |url=http://lib.slu.edu/about/associates/literary-award |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160731082313/http://lib.slu.edu/about/associates/literary-award |archive-date=31 July 2016 |access-date=25 July 2016}}</ref>
* 2000 Elected to the [[American Philosophical Society]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Seamus+Heaney&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=15 July 2021 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>
* 2000 [[Fiddler's Green International Folk Festival|Fiddler's Green Festival Creative Arts Award]]<ref name="CAA">{{Cite web |title=Creative Arts Award |website=Fiddler’s Green Festival |date=22 June 2016 |url=https://fiddlersgreenfestival.com/caa/ |access-date=2025-07-18}}</ref>
* 2001 [[Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings|Golden Wreath of Poetry]], given by [[Struga Poetry Evenings]] for life achievement in the field of poetry<ref>O'Driscoll, Dennis, (2008) ''Stepping Stones:  interviews with Seamus Heaney'', p. xxviii.  Farrar, Straus and Giroux.</ref>
* 2004 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kenyon Review for Literary Achievement |url=http://www.kenyonreview.org/programs/kenyon-review-award-for-literary-achievement/ |website=KenyonReview.org}}</ref>
* 2005 [[Irish PEN Award]]<ref>[http://www.irishpen.com/irish-pen-award-for-literature/ "Irish PEN Award for Literature"], [[Irish PEN]].</ref>
* 2006 [[T. S. Eliot Prize]] for ''[[District and Circle]]''<ref name="times-obit" />
* 2007 [[Poetry Now Award]] for ''District and Circle''<ref name="it2011" /><ref>[http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2007/0331/1175003571927.html Heaney work a unanimous choice] ''Irish Times'', 31 March 2007.</ref>
* 2009 [[David Cohen Prize]]<ref name="times-obit" />
* 2011 [[Poetry Now Award]] for ''[[Human Chain (poetry)|Human Chain]]''<ref name="it2011">"[http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0326/1224293135913.html Heaney wins 'Irish Times' poetry award]", ''Irish Times'', 26 March 2011.</ref>
* 2011 [[Irish Book Awards|Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award]]<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ronan McGreevy |date=18 November 2011 |title=Heaney honoured at book awards |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1118/1224307765902.html |access-date=23 April 2019 |newspaper=The Irish Times}}</ref>
* 2012 [[Griffin Poetry Prize]], Lifetime Recognition Award<ref>{{Cite news |last=Newington |first=Giles |date=16 June 2012 |title=Heaney wins top Canadian prize |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0616/1224318011868.html |access-date=16 June 2012 |newspaper=The Irish Times}}</ref>
{{div col end}}

==See also==
{{portal|Poetry}}
* [[List of Nobel laureates in Literature]]
* [[List of people on the postage stamps of Ireland]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons category}}
* {{Nobelprize}} including the Nobel Lecture on 7 December 1995 ''Crediting Poetry''
* {{IMDb name|2573636}}
* [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/seamus-heaney Seamus Heaney] at the Poetry Foundation
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051228104045/http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1392 Seamus Heaney] at the Poetry Archive
* [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/211 Seamus Heaney] at the Academy for American Poets
* {{NPG name}}
* [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/seamus-heaney-155578 BBC Your Paintings in partnership PCF]. Painting by [[Peter Edwards (artist)|Peter Edwards]]
* {{Guardian topic}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Henri Cole |date=Fall 1997 |title=Seamus Heaney, The Art of Poetry No. 75 |url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1217/the-art-of-poetry-no-75-seamus-heaney |journal=The Paris Review |volume=Fall 1997 |issue=144 |ref=none}}
* [https://www.lannan.org/events/seamus-heaney-with-dennis-odriscoll  Lannan Foundation reading and conversation] with Dennis O'Driscoll, 1 October 2003. (Audio / video – 40 mins). [http://www.lannan.org/docs/seamus-heaney-031001-trans-read.pdf Prose transcript].
* [http://www.whiting.org/awards/keynotes/seamus-heaney 1998 Whiting Writers' Award Keynote Speech]
* [https://archive.today/20131104103106/http://ragazine.cc/2013/11/seamus-heaneyjohn-smelcer/ Seamus Heaney: Man of Words and Grace] November–December 2013.
* [http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/festival/2008/10/history-and-hom.html "History and the homeland" video from] ''[[The New Yorker]]''. 15 October 2008. [[Paul Muldoon]], interviews Heaney. (1 hr).
* Archival material at {{wikidata|qualifier|property|P485|Q24568958|P856|format=\[%q %p\]}}

{{Seamus Heaney}}
{{Beowulf}}
{{Irish poetry}}
{{Nobel Prize in Literature Laureates 1976-2000}}
{{1995 Nobel Prize winners}}
{{Navboxes
|title= Awards received by Seamus Heaney
|list1=
{{Mondello Prize}}
{{svplaureats| state = collapsed}}
{{Poetry Now Award}}
{{David Cohen Prize}}
}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heaney, Seamus}}
[[Category:1939 births]]
[[Category:2013 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Bellaghy]]
[[Category:People educated at St Columb's College]]
[[Category:Writers from Dublin (city)]]
[[Category:20th-century writers from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:21st-century writers from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:Alumni of Queen's University Belfast]]
[[Category:Castledawson Gaelic footballers]]
[[Category:Aosdána members]]
[[Category:Saoithe]]
[[Category:David Cohen Prize recipients]]
[[Category:Essayists from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature]]
[[Category:Fellows of St John's College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Formalist poets]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
[[Category:Translators from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:British Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Literature]]
[[Category:Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath laureates]]
[[Category:Translators from Irish]]
[[Category:Translators from Old English]]
[[Category:Translators from Polish]]
[[Category:Translators from Scottish Gaelic]]
[[Category:Translators of Brian Merriman]]
[[Category:Translators to English]]
[[Category:Translators of Dante Alighieri]]
[[Category:20th-century dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:20th-century poets from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish poets]]
[[Category:Male poets from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:21st-century dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:21st-century poets from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:Members of the Royal Irish Academy]]
[[Category:Oxford Professors of Poetry]]
[[Category:Irish PEN Award for Literature winners]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish translators]]
[[Category:21st-century translators]]
[[Category:Male dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:Male essayists]]
[[Category:20th-century British essayists]]
[[Category:21st-century British essayists]]
[[Category:Male writers from Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres]]
[[Category:T. S. Eliot Prize winners]]
[[Category:Corresponding fellows of the British Academy]]
[[Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society]]
[[Category:Writers from County Londonderry]]
[[Category:People from Castledawson]]
[[Category:Writers about Ireland]]