30 August 2013: Seamus Heaney dies

Just minutes before he died, Seamus Heany sent a text to his wife, Marie. He chose to use Latin for his final words which were, “Noli timere” (“Be not afraid”). [1]

Irish poet, Seamus Heaney died in the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin on 30 August 2013, aged 74, following a short illness. His funeral was held in Donnybrook, Dublin, on 2 September 2013, and he was buried at his home village of Bellaghy, in the same graveyard as his parents, young brother, and other family members. Born on 13 April 1939, Seamus Heaney was married and had three children and was a professor at Harvard University from 1981 to 1997, and its Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Seamus Heaney’s poetry is often down-to-earth and is frequently connected with daily experiences. His first major collection, Death of a Naturalist, was published in 1966 and was met with much critical acclaim and won several awards. Many of the poems he wrote in the 1970s and the 1980s, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, deal with the often-violent political struggles that plagued the country at this time.

I believe that Heaney was a stunning poet and he apparently was an incredibly nice man too.