Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Our statements this evening are more than tinged with sadness. When Seamus Heaney died so suddenly last month his loss reverberated around the world. We feel this loss most keenly here in Ireland where he lived, worked and wrote. Like many in this House, I met Seamus Heaney on a number of occasions. In 1991, we were both on a tour of American cities, including San Jose and Pittsburgh, and our itinerary overlapped in a number of locations. I had the opportunity to speak with him informally over the occasional cup of coffee about his work and about the popularity of Irish writing in the United States. I recognised then, as did many others, that Seamus Heaney was Ireland's supreme cultural ambassador. I saw at first hand the respect that both the academic world, the Irish diaspora, and the reader held for him and his work.

I subsequently met Seamus at the Listowel Writers' Week, which he attended on a number of occasions, reading each time to full houses. His genuine friendship with John B. Keane was coupled with an openness to help and mentor emerging writers and poets, like John McAuliffe. Many have remarked on his generosity in providing assistance to young writers. Many have also commented on how down to earth and unassuming he was. I was present with the Taoiseach at an event to mark the donation of his archives to the National Library of Ireland almost two years ago. This was a very important occasion. However, I was told afterwards of the background to this donation and how Seamus had arrived at the library, papers in boxes in the back of his car. He had carried the precious boxes of letters and pages from his car into the building, quietly and without any fuss. This was the mark of the man - a great donation but done simply, without pomp and circumstance.

Most recently, I had the pleasure of Seamus Heaney's company in Paris when he read his work at the Centre Culturel Irlandais as part of Ireland's Presidency of the European Union. Each person in attendance was honoured to hear him. It was an open air event and, introducing Seamus, I could feel the growing sense of anticipation and excitement among the audience. The large group, consisting mainly of Parisians but including many others of different nationalities, had gathered to hear the words of the master. When Seamus uttered his first word a calm descended on the audience. As he spoke, a blackbird nearby began to provide a chorus to his words. It reminded me of Seamus's poem, St. Kevin and the Blackbird, which I propose to cite:

And then there was St. Kevin and the blackbird.

The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside

His cell, but the cell is narrow, so

One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff

As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands

And lays in it and settles down to nest.

Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked

Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked

Into the network of eternal life,

Is moved to pity: Now he must hold his hand

Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks

Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.

On that evening in June, it was apt that a blackbird should join the public reading and a beautiful moment.

So much of Heaney's work was immersed in living things - heritage, landscape and our surroundings. The bog, his love of which was sparked by the unearthing from the peat of items such as an elk's skeleton on a neighbour's farm, was a frequent touchstone for his work. Tollund Man and Grauballe Man, naturally mummified bog bodies discovered more than 60 years ago in Denmark, sparked his imagination. The countryside, the crops, fruits, animals and people who inhabited it and all its beauty and harshness, ran like a seam through his work.

When Seamus travelled to Stockholm in 1995 to accept the most prestigious award a writer can receive, we were deeply proud of him. It was a formal recognition of something that was already well known, that he was a writer of international standing and one of the greatest of our time. This extraordinary talent could be also beautifully simple. The language that Seamus used was often the language of the everyday. He embodied the simple principle that the brilliant need no artifice. He painted vivid scenes with simple words that he exalted.

There are rarities that come along every now and again - the scientists, explorers, artists who change the way we view the world and our surroundings and whose influence and reach are immense. Seamus was one of them. He was a poet of the world and Greek, Latin, Gaelic and English were the playing fields of his imagination. His mastery of language was equalled only by his generosity of spirit. He had time for everyone and he gave freely of his talent and counsel to many aspiring writers, poets and artists, as well as to those of us who simply loved his writing and delighted in his reading of his work.

Seamus bequeaths a mighty legacy and leaves an immense gap in all our intellectual, artistic and thinking lives. This loss pales beside the great loss felt by his loved ones, especially Marie, his son, Michael, who joins us this evening, Christopher, Catherine Ann, his family, as well as his devoted secretary, Susan, and her husband, Ciaran, who are also with us. Our thoughts remain with them and I hope that, in coming together this evening, we have communicated to them, in some small way, the extent to which we feel and share their loss. Seamus, the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle, is always theirs, but we thank them for sharing him with the rest of us.

See this speech in context