I feel deeply saddened at hearing that Seamus Heaney died earlier today. His family, Ireland and the World have lost a man with a warm, warm heart, incredible poetic talent and humility.
I was fortunate enough to hear Seamus Heaney read his work at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2009. It was an indescribable experience.
I would like to repost a piece I wrote about him here on Social Bridge just over a year ago and in doing so, extend my sympathy to his family, and thank him for the precious memories he has left us as well a such a wonderful legacy of poetry.
Seamus Heaney and his poetry have been weaving in and out of my life for over 25 years now. I remember celebrating wildly with my mother in 1995 when news came through that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
It seemed so right that he was star poet reading at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2009, just a few short weeks after Mother had died. Kilkenny was the place where my parents first met in the early 1940s and I felt their happy youthful presence all round me as I made my way to St. Canice’s Cathedral for the performance.
Nothing could ever have prepared me for the impact which Seamus Heaney and his poetry had on me that balmy August evening. It was as if he knew that Mother had just died and was trying to comfort me by telling me that I was not alone in my…
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SOCIAL BRIDGE ~ Jean Tubridy connecting with you from Ireland 