Irish poet and lecturer Seamus Heaney passed away at a hospital in Dublin at the age of 74 on August 30, 2013. The family of the Nobel prize winner informed the media that he died after a short illness.
Heaney was the eldest of nine children in Co Derry in Northern Ireland and won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. In 1996, he was made a Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. The poet attended a Catholic boarding school and later went to the Queen’s University Belfast and settled in Dublin.
The collection ‘Death of a Naturalist’ in 1966 introduced him to the public. Jimmy Deenihan, the Arts Minister of Ireland paid tribute to the poet and called him a ‘great ambassador’. Deenihan said, “He was just a very humble, modest man. He was very accessible. Anywhere I have ever travelled in the world and you mention poetry and literature and the name of Seamus Heaney comes up immediately.”
The minister went on to say that he was a huge international figure and a great ambassador for literature. Heaney is survived by his wife Marie and children Michael, Catherine Ann and Christopher.
Photo Credits: Rasset
