Writers and company seamus heaney biography wikipedia

He was the eldest of nine children born to Patrick Heaney, a cattle farmer, and Margaret McCann, and grew up on the family farm of Mossbawn. The people, landscapes and memories of his upbringing would inform his poetry throughout his life. He also talks about growing up Catholic in the days before the violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and how this informed daily interactions and his later worldview.

Together they had three children, Michael born in , Christopher and Catherine Ann This was the first time that Heaney had devoted himself completely to his own writing and the family spent four years in Glanmore Cottage, a small gate lodge owned by their friend, the Canadian academic Ann Saddlemyer. In , he took up a teaching post at Carysfort College of Education in Dublin and, the following year, moved with his family to a new home in the city's neighbourhood of Sandymount, where he would live for the rest of his life.

His work gained a devoted readership in the US in particular, where, from onwards, he spent four months every year teaching at Harvard University. As his work was translated into other languages, he also found a readership beyond the English-speaking world. He travelled extensively, delivering lectures, taking part in festivals and summer schools, and giving readings around the world.

In Ireland, he became an increasingly public figure and was frequently called upon to comment on political situations, such as the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Among his peers in the literary community, Heaney is perhaps best remembered for his generosity of spirit and unstinting support of younger writers, championing them in public and encouraging them in private correspondence.

Seamus heaney family

He was particularly devoted to sending postcards to friends and family. Famously, an early recipient of this support was the young Paul Muldoon, but there were countless others to whom he acted as a guiding spirit. His untimely death in Dublin on 30 August , after a short illness, prompted a huge outpouring of grief in his native Ireland and around the world.

More recently, his words have been quoted by President Joe Biden, who counts Heaney among his favourite poets.