Dáil debates

Tuesday, 24 September 2013

An Appreciation of the Life and Work of Seamus Heaney: Statements

 

5:55 pm

Photo of Seán BarrettSeán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)
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I welcome to the Distinguished Visitors Gallery members of the late Seamus Heaney's family. You are very welcome and it is a great honour to have you here.

Photo of Enda KennyEnda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I would like to welcome Michael, Seamus's secretary, Susan, and her husband, Ciarán, to the House.

As Friday mornings go, it was busy. Those with young families were out early, buying the last of the books and lurid lunchboxes. Everybody here was making calls, lists and readying offices for the start of the new term, all of us noticing the change in the light. All day, word of his death broke radio schedules, consciousness and the heart of a nation. It was, indeed, sad news. There would be no one now to keep the gap from Joyce's salt strand to Molly Bloom's rhododendrons and roses, or the Fianna's Binn Éadair. From that day, there would be no man marooned in his own loft, a birch planted 20 years ago between him and the Irish Sea, searching, as he put it, "for that one piece of language that fits exactly". And as he sought, so he found.

It is almost two years now since Seamus, Marie, Michael, Christopher and Catherine Ann gifted us those finds in the Heaney archive. Again, the light was changing. It was Advent, the winter solstice, in fact. On that day, we were given a gift beyond precious metal, incense or ointment, or all they signify. It was a gift from one who could disarm kings, inspire presidents, heal hurts, break hearts, make cures at Troy, burials at Thebes and miracles out of all of us, and out of all that we are and were and could be, at Anahorish, or on a tube in London, or watching our fathers dig, or peeling potatoes with our mother, or as a new family of Europeans, united through the unstrange word at the Fionn Uisce, the Beacons at Bealtaine. For him, it was only all and ever about memory and "the state of us".

So much has been written and said about Seamus Heaney in the last 26 days: oceans - continents - of words. In the media there was the particular eloquence of Theo Dorgan, Fintan O'Toole and Andrew O'Hagan. In the church at his requiem mass, we held our breath, the building itself seeming to catch itself and to listen, as Paul Muldoon shared his impeccable and devastating observations on heartbreak, general and particular, on the matter of Seamus Heaney's beauty, on the matter of his being kind and decent, and the greater business of his being the first and eternal champion of his daughter, Catherine Ann. In that moment Paul Muldoon made them every father and every daughter, because every father and daughter, present or watching, recognised in the story and its telling the power of something that was not just a life gift but a birthright. Inevitably, the politics of birthright was the backdrop to so much of Heaney's work.

In the days since his death, the lines about "hope and history" have rhymed across the world, as private and public figures reacted to the news. For me, however, it is what Seamus Heaney says about his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy that best sums up his very particular and considered view of the poetic and the political:

Poetry, let us say, whether it belongs to an old political dispensation or aspires to express a new one, has to be a working model of inclusive consciousness. It should not simplify.

Its projections and inventions should be a match for the complex reality which surrounds it, and out of which it is generated.
Across the world Seamus Heaney was and is seen not alone as Ireland's better self, but, I believe, its best self possible. It is a self alive to and alive with what he called "the potency of myth". In June, he spoke to the Paris Revue de Belles-lettres about "journeys to the underworld", not alone in Dante, but also Virgil and Homer:
The potency of the myth was [he said] a way of imagining something ongoing ...Christian myth is so contentious and exhausted ... I find that there were underworld journeys where the shades of the people you knew are met. I find it deeply, archetypally satisfactory. You don't need to believe in an "afterlife" but you get some kind of satisfaction ... I find Virgil simply beautiful, the various encounters with the lost people.
Today, I am certain he has met them, for they are his people as they are ours, those links in the human chain. Today, we miss and mourn and yet celebrate the incomparable Seamus Heaney. We give thanks joyously, graciously and humbly for the gift of him in our national life. He who was our voice, our hearth, our "home".

6:05 pm

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Seamus Heaney was a great poet. Perhaps he had we in this place in mind when he wrote the following in 1985 at the request of Ms Mary Lawlor of Amnesty International Ireland to mark international human rights day. It has since inspired a generation of human rights activists. Amnesty International's highest award, the ambassador of conscience, is inspired by his work. Members probably know it. It is called From the Republic of Conscience. It reads:

When I landed in the republic of conscience

it was so noiseless when the engines stopped

I could hear a curlew high above the runway.

At immigration, the clerk was an old man

who produced a wallet from his homespun coat

and showed me a photograph of my grandfather.

The woman in customs asked me to declare

the words of our traditional cures and charms

to heal dumbness and avert the evil eye.

No porters. No interpreter. No taxi.

You carried your own burden and very soon

your symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared.

Fog is a dreaded omen there but lightning

spells universal good and parents hangs

waddled infants in trees during thunderstorms.

Salt is their precious mineral. And seashells

are held to the ear during births and funerals.

The base of all inks and pigments is seawater.

Their sacred symbol is a stylised boat.

The sail is an ear, the mast a sloping pen,

the hull a mouth-shape, the keel an open eye.

At their inauguration, public leaders

must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep

to atone for their presumption to hold office -

and to affirm their faith that all life sprang

from salt in tears which the sky-god wept

after he dreamt his solitude was endless.

I came back from that frugal republic

with my two arms the one length, the customs woman

having insisted my allowance was myself.

The old man rose and gazed into my face

and said that was official recognition

that I was now a dual citizen.

He therefore desired me when I got home

to consider myself a representative

and to speak on their behalf in my own tongue.

Their embassies, he said, were everywhere

but operated independently

and no ambassador would ever be relieved.

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Tá an náisiún fós faoi bhrón de dheasca bás Seamus Heaney. Déanaim comhbhrón lena bhean Marie agus a chlann, Michael, Christopher agus Catherine Anne. File den scoth, gan amhras ab ea Seamus Heaney agus bhí cliú agus cáil air ar fud an domhain. Fear mór grámhar i ngach aon tslí a bhí ann. Bhí sé cineálta agus lách agus thug sé cabhair agus tacaíocht do a lán daoine, go háirithe filí na tíre seo. Cheap sé go raibh dualgas poiblí air seirbhís a thabhairt don phobal i gcoitinne agus don fhilíocht go háirithe.

There is no doubt that the death of Seamus Heaney has left a large void for all of us, but that void is very painful indeed for his wife, Marie, his children, Michael, Christopher and Catherine, and his close friends, Susan and Ciaran, who are with us today. We have lost our national poet, but they have lost a loving husband and father. I join the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Quinn, by expressing on behalf of my party our deepest sympathy to you. I hope that the very happy memories that you shared together and the wonderful tributes that have been paid to Seamus will sustain you in the weeks, months and years head.

His passing was spoken about all over the world. There was genuine sadness felt by all who knew him and by all who loved his beautiful poetry and prose. These were heartfelt and genuine tributes, as people were touched by his contribution to humanity through his poetry and writings. He touched many millions of people with his words over many decades and his passing leaves an enormous gap in our lives, not just on this island, but throughout the world. His fellow poets in particular feel that loss. Theo Dorgan wrote that poetry flowed into Heaney and through him, rather than being created.

In preparation for this address, I was anxious to ascertain the views of the poets of Ireland after the loss of Seamus Heaney. I spoke with a colleague and friend in Cork, a poet called Thomas McCarthy. When he wrote back to me, he stated that the poets of Ireland were bereft. Some of us from outside the poetry world might not have this sense, but they are bereft. He went on to state that, not only had the greatest Irish poet since W.B. Yeats passed away, but a great, towering beech tree, a great nurturing Ulster presence, had been taken from us. He stated that, from the very beginning, Seamus seemed to have been touched by fame. It accompanied him everywhere. Whenever he entered a room or lecture theatre, excited anticipation rose.

It was a genuine belief across all poets that one met and that one has spoken to since his death that poems such as Mid-Term Break, Follower, The Tollund Man and the great 1984 sequence Station Island will ensure that he will be remembered as long as poetry is recited. Most poets will agree that, unlike themselves, his poetic immortality is assured.

What has also emerged about him among his fellow poets was his extraordinary kindness to many poets who were on the way up or were in difficulty in life. He was the eldest child in a farming family. That background may be a clue to understanding how such a famous, busy and put-upon writer could help so many other writers. Thomas McCarthy, who has written novels about politicians and is very close to well known politicians in Waterford, Jackie Fahey being one, told me that he was a bit like Jackie Fahey among the poets, in that he minded them. He answered every letter, returned every telephone call and tried to fulfil every request to attend another poet's book launch or reading. He wore himself out helping other poets and artists because he had a profound sense of public duty. He summed this up to Thomas McCarthy by stating that, when one had a great harvest, one had to share it with the neighbours. He leveraged his own fame to enhance the status of other poets internationally, particularly in the US, by supporting them in creating their own marks through their writings when some of them may have felt vulnerable or isolated as they moved into a new world. He was a great ally and a great advocate for Ireland's interests in literature and across the board. He was very much in the mould of W.B. Yeats and Dubhghlas de hÍde in that regard.

It is fair to say that the conflict on the island of Ireland challenged him as a poet and an Ulsterman who was conscious of what was going on around him. Conflict scenarios present unique challenges to poets. It was not easy for him. His poetry highlights and mourns the needless loss of many lives and neighbours. Colm Tóibín poetically wrote: "In a time of burnings and bombings Seamus Heaney used poetry to offer an alternative world." Seamus Heaney wrote in his poem, Terminus: "Two buckets were easier carried than one. I grew up in between."

From the phase of his poetry dealing with the North, one gets a sense of wrestling with the issues - divided tribal loyalties to different communities and endeavouring to walk a path through. More than most, he captured the emerging hope that the peace process brought to the island of Ireland and to its people.

He was clear about his own background and where he came from. He was included in a book on contemporary British poetry, and wrote an open letter stating:

My passport's green.

No glass of ours was ever raised

To toast the Queen.
Yet, when Queen Elizabeth II made her historic visit to Ireland, Heaney spoke about how delighted he was to be sitting at the table to welcome her on that historic occasion.

The Cure at Troyis the iconic poem on the emergence of the peace process, which Heaney dedicated to the victims of the Omagh bombing:

History says, Don't hope

On this side of the grave,

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme.
He captured that incredible sense of hope we all experienced as practising politicians, that maybe something was dawning. For the first time in our lives we could comprehend a new era concerning two sets of relationships on the island of Ireland.

I attended Seamus's funeral and we were all struck by the absolute simplicity and creativity that surrounded that ceremony. As the Taoiseach said, there was also a strong familial touch and the constant reminder that he was a father and a husband. Amidst the various celebrities from the artistic and political worlds, that came across particularly strongly. His friend, Paul Muldoon, spoke eloquently and articulated a trait that was ultimately one of the reasons Seamus was so popular and so loved. It was that lack of self importance that was part of his demeanour and the manner of his bearing.

Seamus Heaney's legacy will be enduring. I spoke at the Merriman School, of which he was patron, just a week or two before he passed away. I was using the argument that, through poetry and the arts, we could do an awful lot more in terms of bridging North and South. Heaney's poetry is on the school curriculum, both North and South. One of the great legacies of his life is that his work will be there for generations of students to enjoy and engage with in the years to come.

The poet, Tom McCarthy, summed up the legacy that Heaney bequeaths to us:

The poets of Ireland can only console ourselves now by following the instructions embodied in his life. Even in situations of bitterness and conflict there is always room for the generous act, for the belief in our neighbours, and an untoppled belief in Ireland.
That was Seamus Heaney's life.

6:15 pm

Photo of Gerry AdamsGerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Is mór an onóir domsa an deis seo a fháil chun mo fhíor-chomhbróin agus comhbhrón Sinn Féin a chur in iúl inniu do chlann Séamus Heaney, agus urraim a thabhairt dá gcuimhne.

I am honoured to have the opportunity, on my own behalf and that of Sinn Féin, to join Dáil colleagues and others in the North, including in the Assembly and in south Derry, in expressing to Seamus's widow, Marie, and their children, Christopher, Michael and Catherine Ann, our profound sadness at his passing and our solidarity with them. I cannot recall any death in recent times that was felt by so many people. I know that sense of loss can only be a fraction of what his bereaved family and close personal friends are feeling.

Seoid náisiúnta ab ea Séamus. Táimid fíor-bhuíoch do Marie agus a teaghlach mar thug siad Seamus duinn. He was extremely modest, approachable and humble, and had a great sense of humour. He had a profound and humane understanding of us as a people because he was of us as a people, with all our faultlines, flaws, strengths and weaknesses. Until his death, he was the world's leading living poet in the English language. He was a proud Tamlaghduff man from south County Derry who loved his place and his people. He made them universal because he wrote of them often.

Seamus and Michael McLaverty - another wonderful writer - taught for a time in my home area of Ballymurphy. Michael was headmaster of St. Thomas's secondary school on the Whiterock Road and Seamus was a teacher there. It was from the graffiti there that came, much later, the legend "Is there a life before death" that Seamus used in his poem, Whatever you say, say nothing.

In the early 1970s, when I was on the run, I remember travelling on a bus down the Falls Road reading Death of a Naturalist when the British army stopped the bus and boarded it to check the passengers. They were from the parachute regiment and were menacing. They were asking everyone their names and addresses, as well as where they were coming from and going to. For a second, one Brit stared at me and then he moved on and questioned the passenger behind me. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they got off the bus. From that point on, Seamus Heaney became a talisman for me and I told him that much later.

In Long Kesh, where I was a prisoner for a time, I remember one 12 July sitting with a couple of other prisoners in a cage. We could hear the Orange drums outside on Blaris Road. To our surprise, one of our comrades started to recite, from memory, the poem Orange Drums, Tyrone, 1966:

The lambeg balloons at his belly, weighs

Him back on his haunches, lodging thunder

Grossly there between his chin and his knees.

He is raised up by what he buckles under.

Each arm extended by a seasoned rod,

He parades behind it. And though the drummers

Are granted passage through the nodding crowd

It is the drums preside, like giant tumours.

To every cocked ear, expert in its greed,

His battered signature subscribes 'No Pope'.

The pigskin's scourged until his knuckles bleed.

The air is pounding like a stethoscope.
Almost 20 years later, I was writing Hope and History - whose title I stole - which deals with the 1980s and 1990s and the birth and evolution of the peace process. I contacted Seamus and asked if he would mind if I quoted from his poem The Cure at Troy. He generously and speedily agreed.

More recently, in 2010, and I have wonderful memories of that day, he returned to west Belfast for the rededication of a stone at the grave of the playwright, Sam Thompson, and to speak about Michael McLaverty. Sam Thompson was a well-known and influential writer who wrote a wonderful play called Over the Bridge. This was in 1959 when I was only a child. It came under huge pressure from the old Unionist regime and the Group Theatre in Belfast refused to stage it. Jimmy Ellis, who became well known later for his part in the television series "Z Cars", left the Group Theatre to set up his own company which staged the play. It was a hugely courageous thing to do at that time.

Seamus was to speak at Féile an Phobail on all these matters. A group of us gathered at Sam Thompson's grave in the city cemetery, including Sam's son and Jimmy Ellis. It was raining but I cannot tell the story because it would be embarrassing to one or two of the people there, but it was hilarious. It was rescued by Seamus at the end who paid tribute both to Sam Thompson and Jimmy Ellis.

Afterwards, he and Marie went off to visit St. Thomas's school with Danny Morrison. I am told that was the first time he was in the school since he left around 1961. It was a very emotional visit. In his talk that day in the big hall in St. Mary's University College on the Falls Road, he told us about the first time he saw his future wife sitting there. He also spoke about being a student and paid tribute to Michael McLaverty. His comments were peppered with humorous insights and telling observations about writing, literature and Belfast at that time. Everyone was enthralled, and then he read us some of his poetry. He thoroughly enjoyed that event and, just as importantly, so did Marie.

She was especially delighted. His poetry uplifted, surprised and challenged us. It brought him comfort. I attended the mass and was delighted because I had written an article about Seamus's performance during the Fleadh in Derry with Liam Óg O'Flynn of The Poet and the Piperand The Given Note. Two of my favourite pieces of music and poetry are Seamus Heaney's Port na bPúcaí andThe Given Note. The Given Note was given to Seamus. He worked on, developed and honed it. He magically wove words, relived memories, invoked imagination and made us laugh and cry. He also made us think.

I listened to the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, ag léamhFrom The Republic of Conscience.I read it aloud in the car last week. I was not driving at the time. I read it aloud because I think poetry is always better when one hears it. It is a wonderful poem. I was amazed by the magic within it. I do not think any of us could make reference to Seamus Heaney without referencing the Cure at Troy. It is so true. It reads:

Human beings suffer,

They torture one another,

They get hurt and get hard.

No poem or play or song

Can fully right a wrong

Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols

Beat on their bars together.

A hunger-striker's father

Stands in the graveyard dumb.

The police widow in veils

Faints at the funeral home.

History says, don't hope

On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracle

And cures and healing wells.
In these days of turbulence and change in the North, we should be ever mindful that a further shore is reachable from here and we should reach for it. Thank you Marie, Catherine Ann, Christopher and Michael. Go raibh míle maith agat. Thank you, Seamus Heaney.

6:25 pm

Photo of John HalliganJohn Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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I believe one of Seamus Heaney's greatest gifts was to make poetic themes accessible and relatable to people who, by and large, were not interested in poetry. Two thirds of poetry collections sold in the UK in the year prior to our national celebration of his 70th birthday were Seamus Heaney's books. Very few poets, contemporary or otherwise, can lay claim to such popularity. Quite fittingly, numerous events organised to mark culture night last Friday paid homage to Seamus Heaney.

Generations of Irish people will have been familiar with Seamus Heaney's poems. His place in Irish culture and not only Irish poetry was incomparable. Following his death, it was noted that he possessed what he himself once prescribed to Yeats, namely, the gift of establishing authority within culture. Seamus Heaney once said, "Ireland is not a country but a manuscript." With this in mind, he always had something to convey about what mattered, be it home, nature, history or moral choice. In a typical articulate speech at the National Museum last March he excellently summed up the frame of mind of the nation during this economic climate when he said, "We are not simply a credit rating or an economy but a history and a culture: a human population rather than a statistical phenomenon." No doubt the great poet was keenly aware of the manner in which the Irish art sector is being institutionally devalued these days. He spoke often about that.

Some years ago, Pat Moylan, chairman of the Arts Council, while reacting to cuts in the arts funding pondered from where the next Seamus Heaney would come if the Government continued to treat the arts as some kind of luxury that can be easily cut in a recession. She warned that this thoughtless hacking at the Arts Council's budget would reduce our chances of future champions of the Irish arts, like Heaney. The arts sector has suffered 30% cuts in State funding in the past five years. Anyone who thinks these cuts have no affect is seriously deluded. This sector has no fat and had none to begin with. Hence, the cuts are going straight to the bone.

To save money, one of the oldest theatres in the country, the Theatre Royal, went dark for several months this year. The internationally recognised Spraoi marked its 21st year with severely pared back budgets. I have personally written letters of recommendation for several gifted artists, actors and poets who have emigrated to seek work in the arts in other countries. There is simply nothing left here for them. Names like Seamus Heaney act like a magnet when it comes to attracting tourists to the country. With cultured tourism worth €2.1 billion annually to the economy, it cannot be cast to one side. This talent needs to be nurtured.

It is wholly fitting that we celebrate the national institution that was Seamus Heaney here today. However, we need to do more than pay lip-service. We need to provide a solid framework in which young emerging artists, about whom Seamus Heaney often spoke, can thrive. Today, as we mark the immense legacy which Seamus Heaney has made to this country, I implore the Government to ponder the question, "From where will the next Nobel Laureate come?" As the final touches are put to the budget I hope the Taoiseach and Cabinet will be able to look back on the cuts made and ask, "Was it worth it?" In the words of Seamus Heaney, "The next move is always the test."

One of the greatest love poems ever written was Valediction, which is about, Marie, the woman Seamus Heaney loved. It is a simple poem which he wrote when Marie went shopping and he missed her from the house. The last few lines of that poem are absolutely immaculate and will go down in history as some of the greatest words ever written in a love poem. It reads:

Pitched from the quiet sound

Of your flower-tender

Voice. Need breaks on my strand;

You've gone, I am at sea.

Until you resume command.

Self is in mutiny.
Brilliant. Thank you.

Photo of Jimmy DeenihanJimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael)
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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.

6:35 pm

Photo of Seán Ó FearghaílSeán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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In joining in the welcome other speakers have expressed to Michael, Susan and Ciaran, it is appropriate to thank the Taoiseach and the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Jimmy Deenihan, for giving Deputies an opportunity to pay tribute to Seamus Heaney at this early stage after his untimely death. We all value the opportunity to pay tribute to one of the greatest Irishmen.

In history, Ireland has been renowned as an island of great learning and scholarship. We have always deeply valued learning and the pursuit of the ideals of the mind. We often forget or neglect these values in these most difficult of times, understandably so. Higher thought can seem very far away when concerns are focused on incoming bills, worries about employment or caring for a loved one. Increasingly, the national narrative has focused on the cold, calculated statistics of GDP, GNP, bond yields and unemployment which, in recent times, have provided little comfort for our people.

As a nation, we have faced challenging and testing times before. The foundation of the State was a bloody and vicious battle which stemmed from a national awakening and driving sense of unity and purpose, only to end with a searing civil war which vibrated for decades afterwards. The crisis at the outbreak of the Second World War, colloquially known as the Emergency, resulted in rationing and great hardship, although thankfully we were spared the horrors that engulfed the rest of Europe. The nation also faced a crisis of confidence and conscious when the Troubles erupted in Northern Ireland at the end of the 1960s. This conflict would devastate thousands of families, North and South, east and west, and inflict hurt on hurt, build wound on wound and create a sense of despair which hung over these islands until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. It was difficult in those times to reflect, to learn deeply and to find value in pursuing the higher ideals of the mind. So much hurt created little room for such thought, yet there are those who break through the hurt, embrace the best of humanity and inspire. Today, we pay tribute to a man who lived through those times, broke through the hurt and inspired the world. Through his use of words and his writing and wit, Seamus Heaney became a shining light in a world which had little.

A boy from rural south Derry, Seamus Heaney would begin his most rewarding relationship with writing at St. Columb's College, a Catholic boarding school in the city of Derry, where his journey as an academic, teacher and poet began. His talent shone from a young age and he earned a scholarship to attend St. Columb's College, an opportunity he grabbed with both hands to expand his already burgeoning knowledge and grow his deep love of literature. In 1957, Seamus moved to Belfast where he began his studies of English language and literature at Queen's University. He graduated with first class honours in 1961 and it was during his time in Belfast that he wrote one of his first collections of poetry, Death of a Naturalist, in 1966. This work, consisting of 34 short poems, won the Cholmondeley Award, Gregory Award, Somerset Maugham Award and Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. The many prizes awarded the work were an indication of the success that was to come.

In the same year as Death of a Naturalist was published, Heaney was appointed to a lectureship in Queen's University. It was in this post that he came into contact with Michael Longley and Bernard McLaverty. His works were gaining popularity at home and abroad following publication in the New Statesman. His themes of familial love, heartbreaking loss and sense of renewal and reward appealed to a broad audience of all ages. They reflected the most vivid of emotions in everyday human life, which was one of the most endearing aspects of Heaney's poetry. His mix of literature genius with everyday themes was a testament to a man who never forget where he came from.

One of his most popular and striking poems is Mid-Term Break, which encapsulates the devastating loss of a younger brother while Seamus was away at boarding school. No one can forget the devastating line which, on reading it, leaves a numbing silence hanging in the air: "A four foot box, a foot for every year."

Heaney was always inspired by his surroundings and his Derry childhood was to influence much of his poetry. He was not immune from feeling the bitterly cold wind of discrimination and despair, which were hallmarks of Northern Ireland society in the late 1960s and 1970s.

He was to take part in a number of the first civil march protests following the RUC's vicious attack on citizens' previous attempts to express their democratic right to demand reform of a most crooked system. The loss of human life in the Troubles was present in a number of Heaney's poems such as in North. The bleakness of this period is clear to all in his many works at this time.

His poetry was also to reflect the dramatically changed relations in Northern Ireland after years of violence and turmoil. TheCure at Troyis a verse adaptation by Seamus Heaney which best reflects the more recent history of Northern Ireland when it states:

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.
This phrase, much quoted today, is so often used by those who try to capture the scale of an event, including the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton, when addressing the large gathered crowd in Derry some years ago.

Seamus Heaney, like many Irish people, found a home away from home in the United States. He had a great following there where his reputation continually grew. He began a rewarding relationship with Harvard University where he had a visiting professorship in 1979. He held the Boylston chair of rhetoric and oratory there where he taught one semester a year. He was professor of poetry at Oxford from 1989 to 1994. His students there held him in high esteem and affection. He was known as being approachable and affable, feeling at home with the young and not so young alike. His lectures at Oxford were collected as The Redress of Poetryin 1995.

That year, of course, was a seminal year for Seamus Heaney. It was this year that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for what the Nobel committee described as "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past". Seamus Heaney reflected on the troubled history of Northern Ireland at the ceremony. He showed that he would not be labelled by the Northern conflict as he spoke plainly, condemning both "the atrocious nature of the IRA's campaign of bombings and killings" and "the ruthlessness of the British Army on occasions like Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972". He refused to be used as a pawn in anyone's political games.

The following year he received the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of culture. His other accolades over the years included the T.S. Eliot, Forward and David Cohen prizes, and twice the Whitbread prize. In 2004, Queen's University opened its Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry.

As a nation, we were proud of his achievements and as a poet, I believe it is fair to say he was proud of us, the Irish people. He never allowed any ambiguity develop over his nationality. This fact was encapsulated by his reply to being included in a book of great British poets. Despite sitting down to dinner with Queen Elizabeth when she visited this country some time ago, he wrote:

Don't be surprised if I demur, for, be advised

My passport's green.

No glass of ours was ever raised

To toast the Queen.
Heaney was our national poet. He understood our people, our nation and our way of life, and he reflected these to the world. He was also one of the world's best-known poets, and his passing was felt not just in Ireland but across the globe. This man was a shining light. He was one of our greatest of ambassadors, our keeper of language, our saoi. Despite all this, he remained one of us, one of the people. His inspirational works will continue to inspire for many generations to come.

John Hume, another accomplished Derry man, may have said it best when, in his praise of Heaney, he said:

His poetry expressed a special love of people, place and diversity of life. That profound regard for humanity has made his poetry a special channel for repudiating violence, injustice and prejudice, and urging us all to the better side of our human nature.
To his beloved wife, Marie, to Christopher, Michael and Catherine Ann, and his grandchildren, I say that their loss is our nation's loss. We pass our deepest sympathies to them on losing a husband, father and friend.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.

6:45 pm

Photo of Sandra McLellanSandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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The Irish people have a great love for language, a great feel for the pithy phrase and a quick wit. Even in the day-to-day speech of the ordinary man or woman in the street there is great poetry and colour. I believe this is due to our bilingual nature as a nation, and due to our rich cultural and literary heritage.

Ireland has always produced great poets and writers who have commanded the attention of the nation, and indeed of the world, and caused us all to marvel at their command of language, their craft and their creativity. We are all familiar with the names: poets such as Yeats, Art Mac Cumhaidh, Boland, and Ó Ríordáin; and writers such as Ó Criomhthain, Joyce, Beckett, and Swift. We have a literary tradition that can compare with any in the world, and we are justifiably proud and honoured to have had among us such masters of the English language and of the Irish language.

Though our great writers are legion, few are held in the same regard and with the same genuine affection as was Seamus Heaney. The phrase is used often in the media, but truly it can be said that following the passing of Seamus Heaney a nation mourned. A full house at Croke Park applauded with respect and admiration. Many thousands watched the funeral live and conversations in the street all ended up on the subject of our great loss.

Everyone had their own Heaney poem, perhaps their own line, which meant something very particular to them and had a personal significance. Many of us can remember being introduced to Heaney, perhaps the first time that we read Mid-Term Break. Those last few lines are so sudden and cruel, and visceral at the same time. Rarely has poetry carried such power and force.

It was felt deeply by the Irish people when he passed, because we all felt that we knew Seamus Heaney. He was a part of our lives and meant something to us all. Even those of us, who would not be avid readers of poetry, individually, but more specifically as a community, felt we had lost something special, a wealth of language, talent and joy. Truly he was a treasure.

Seamus Heaney was held in such affectionate regard by the Irish people because he was not exclusive, but inclusive. People felt as though his poetry was written for them because it was written for them. He wrote with that poetry that Irish people speak with. He spoke with an articulacy that was simple and comprehensible. With a great economy of language, he could write about complex emotions with simplicity and even in a colloquial way. While his art was equal in terms of skill and craft to anything being produced anywhere in the world, any person on the street could read his poems and understand and appreciate them.

Since his passing, words such as "earthy" have been used to such a point as to approach cliché. However, it reflects a certain aspect of Heaney's work. He wrote about ordinary things, often in a rural context, in a humble, simple and yet vivid way. He captured Irish country life, at different times and in different places, in a particularly poignant way. At a time when rural areas of Ireland face great pressures, his poetry reminds us of the great heritage, history and indeed poetry and beauty which exists in our rural communities.

He also cast a light on the realities of growing up in the North of Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s. He cast a light on the deep sectarian divisions which existed in Northern society, and underlined the distrust and suspicion which underwrote those divisions. He put the violence and conflict which erupted in the North in the late 1960s and early 1970s in its historical context and in terms of human experience in a way that was compassionate. He neither glorified nor simplified such violence or its causes. He chronicled the key events of his time, not from the perspective of the powerful or the influential, but from the perspective of the ordinary people, detailing their struggles, hardships and feelings.

In spite of his undoubted insight into, and understanding of, the Irish people, it would be a mistake to characterise him only as an Irish poet. He was a poet of the world, and his poetry and writing crossed all borders and spoke to something very deep in the human condition. Upon his passing, tributes flowed not alone from Dublin and Derry, but from the whole world, from the literary world and from wider circles, with former US presidents and the head of the European Commission acknowledging their regard and admiration for him.

His simple but artful use of language and the intense feeling and passion in the poems made him one of the most well-known poets on the planet. Among poets he was one of the most well-regarded and respected, not only as a poet but as a human being. Andrew Motion, the great English poet, believed that we had lost "a great poet, a wonderful writer about poetry and a person of truly exceptional grace and intelligence". This has come through in every tribute paid to him as well as his humanity, kindness and his absolute decency and patience.

I did not have the fortune to meet Seamus Heaney in person at any stage but I know the regard in which he is held within the artistic community. Recently, I attended an Arts Council bursary showcase in Merrion Square at which Seamus was originally to speak. Although an excellent event, it was naturally tinged with sadness because so many people at the event knew him intimately and had worked with him. The evening began with his poetry, and as much power as it ordinarily has, it had so much more on that occasion. He would have been proud to see such talent and so many new artists coming through, whether in literature, the visual arts, music or otherwise.

He has bequeathed us a rich legacy and I am hopeful that it is in good hands. Our nation was so proud on his winning the Nobel Prize in 1995. The reaction was more like a sporting victory than a Nobel Prize. We felt as though the world had finally discovered what had given such pleasure to us and he truly became one of the great international poets.

He marked an important moment in Irish poetry. Along with others, he recaptured the soul of Irish poetry, dug deep into our tradition and heritage and drew a link from now until then. The poem, Is Mairg Nár Chrean le Maitheas Saoghalta, by Daithí Ó Bruadair, the 17th century Cork poet, underscores the death of the old Irish order, mourns how nobility and poets had been reduced to working the land in penury and how the culture and artistry of a generation previous was being lost. There is a certain parallel between this and Heaney's poem Digging. The land and rural life is central. He thinks of his father and generations before him who worked with the land, often in hardship but always with dignity. Heaney writes:

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it.
Many generations after the poets were reduced to peasants and a tradition nearly lost, Heaney grasps the pen and the tradition and reasserts their dignity and importance. The nobility and power of poetry is brought to the fore not as high art away from the people but as part of a living breathing tradition that is as central to Ireland and her story as is the land. There is a phrase in Irish about the decline of Gaelic Ireland, trí ghlúin ó rí go rámhainn, three generations from kings to the spade. In Diggingit is perhaps appropriate to consider that it was trí ghlúin ó rámhainn go peann, three generations from spade to pen. This was his strength and his depth. He was in awe of and indebted to our traditions, culture and language and rooted in them. Thus he brought such insight and passion to bear in reflecting the Irish people and life. Moreover, he brought those traditions with him, looked beyond them and built upon them. That is how he became a poet who spoke to the world and to the universal nature of the human condition. Men of such courage, ability, compassion and insight are rare and we may consider ourselves blessed to have lived in his time. To put it simply, tá laoch ar lár.

6:55 pm

Photo of Maureen O'SullivanMaureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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Is pribhléid agus onóir é dom caint faoi Seamus Heaney. Mar is eol dúinn, is ócáid bhrónach í seo, go háirithe dá chlann agus dá chairde. Ní cheart dúinn bheith brónach, i slí eile, os rud é go bhfuil a fhios againn go mbeidh Seamus Heaney againn go deo - trína chuid filíochta, trína chuid léachta agus trína chuid scríobhneoireachta.

The playwright, Robert Bolt, wrote a play some years ago about Thomas More called A Man for All Seasons. I believe that is an apt title for Seamus Heaney because he was a man for all seasons, not only in the seasonal sense of spring and summer but also a man for all seasons for people in their relationships and moods. Those moods encompass everything in his writing from sadness to happiness and from despair to humour. I always particularly liked his sense of humour which is encapsulated in the poem he wrote about his loving wife Marie, entitled The Skunk in which he used imagery of the animal. We see the man for all seasons aspect in the titles of the collections of poetry: Death of a Naturalist, Door into the Dark, Field Work and Seeing Things. It is also part of all the seasons in our past because in his fourth volume, North, he ranges over 3,000 years of European civilisation stretching back to classical Greece and up to 19th century Ireland.

He was a poet of the people, whether he was writing about his aunt Mary in Sunlight, his father in The Harvest Bow or figures from his childhood. I recall the air of menace and fear created in A Constable Calls. He wrote a poem called Bogland. I am unsure of his view about the current debate about bogs but he had an interest in bogscapes, the many bogs, and the way bogs preserved traces of our past in such a way that they are like museums. We saw that in his poem Bogland.

Poets write poetry because they have something to say and have an urge to communicate. Ezra Pound said that good poetry is "news that stays news" and that is relevant to Heaney's poetry because there is a relevance and resonance that is with us and will be with everyone who reads poetry from here on in.

There are interesting things in his writings particularly in The Redress of Poetry: Oxford Lectures. He said "the poem is asked to set the balance right". He was talking about the political, social and personal balance. He was writing about a poem by Elizabeth Bishop called One Art. He says about Bishop that she manages to advance poetry beyond the point where it has been helping us to enjoy life to that even more profoundly verifying point where it helps us to endure it. That is true of his poetry too. His was a compassionate and wise voice that helped us to endure as well as appreciate life. He spoke about the social character of poetry and how the poet is concerned with his fellow man, among whom he lives, and that the poet is a source of truth and a voice with people.

Another point he made is interesting because we are in a political establishment. In The Redress of Poetry: Oxford Lectures he wrote about how poetry offers a response to reality which has the liberating and verifying effect upon the individual spirit. He went on to say how that is not sufficient for the political activist because the political activist will always want the redress of poetry to be an exercise of leverage on behalf of his point of view and that he would require the entire weight of the thing. This is reminiscent of Yeats's dilemma. He debated whether there should be art for art's sake or art for politics' sake. For Heaney, the redressing effect of poetry comes from its being a glimpsed alternative. We could all do with lots of alternatives.

As a direct response of his award of the Nobel Prize for literature, the Ireland chair of poetry was established between Queen's University, UCD, Trinity College and the arts councils of Northern Ireland and Ireland. As a Dubliner and a north-sider I am delighted that another Dubliner and north-sider, Paula Meehan, is taking up the chair. They have in common their voices of compassion, tolerance, empathy, sensitivity and humour.

A debate is going on at the moment about the Seanad, but my view is that the Seanad should be a place where people are honoured to be Senators. It is an honorary position. I can only imagine a Seanad of people like Seamus Heaney and his fellow poets, including Montague and Longley, and the type of debate it would ensure. It could help us to get away from looking at society and life from a purely economic point of view.

Two particular lines encapsulate Seamus Heaney for me. In The Forge he says "All I know is a door into the dark", but I believe he showed us more than a door into the dark. In Postscript he said "And some time take the time to drive out west". He had us driving all over the place to have views of other perspectives.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I am privileged to be able to join in this tribute to Seamus Heaney. I pass on my sympathies and commiseration to Marie and all his family. I pay tribute to the Government for facilitating these statements. It is a great thing to spend a little time thinking about poetry and writing in the Parliament. We would do well if, before we came in to start our political day, we read the lines of From the Republic of Conscience that the Minister read out earlier. I was planning to read them out myself.

However, they bear repeating when he suggests:

At their inauguration, public leaders

must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep

to atone for their presumption to hold office -

and to affirm their faith that all life sprang

from salt in tears which the sky-god wept

after he dreamt his solitude was endless.
While that is the best put-down of political cynicism I have ever heard, it also is an appeal to be the best and for politics to be what it should be-----

7:05 pm

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Yes.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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-----which is about dealing with human suffering, that is, starting from that point and trying to do something about it.

Seamus Heaney was a giant in both Irish world poetry and to try to do justice in words to someone who was a master of words is quite intimidating. Anything Members say in this Chamber will be poor tribute to the enormous poetic and literary achievement of Seamus Heaney and in some senses, the most important thing one would wish to say about Seamus Heaney is to read his poems and to reread his poems again and again and to experience the richness, the beauty and the power of words when they are in the hands of a master poet and wordsmith. I believe Seamus Heaney's work is a body of work that when taken as a whole, is an unparalleled word painting of modern Irish history and society from the 1960s right up until his death. It is, however, a word painting of that history from the particular perspective of an individual, of a sensitive human being and of a writer trying to grapple with the conflicts, difficulties and problems of that history and society.

Before I became involved or was dragged into politics, I was a student of English literature in UCD and my ambition was to be a poet. Right from the outset, Seamus Heaney's writing inspired me. At the time, I was a student living in a little flat in Sandymount and I was even more thrilled to find, in Gleeson's pub in Ringsend, Seamus Heaney and his wife sitting in the corner enjoying a pint and listening to the traditional music being played there. I of course was blown away by poems like Death of a Naturalist and the great power of his writing was the manner in which he wove together wonderful images of family, of his childhood, of place and of people with the great political concerns, the great conflicts and the great problems, of history as he experienced them and as he felt the need to try to dig beneath and get beyond such conflicts to some sort of better place. In that sense, a poet to whom I was speaking on the telephone beforehand said that in a way, he was a utopian. He was a passionate utopian who yearned-----

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Unlike you, comrade, he lived in the real world.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Yes, but he yearned for the republic of conscience, as the Minister stated.

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Yes, he did.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Moreover, I actually do live in the real world. I think we all live in our different real worlds.

I also recall the debate in college about the relationship between politics and literature and there always were people who thought writers should be more engaged with the Northern conflict in particular. While this of course is not a place to rehearse that interesting debate, Seamus Heaney always featured very strongly in it. While from what I can see or have read, he resisted formal affiliation to any partisan cause or party political agenda, it is important to state he was always engaged with politics in the bigger sense of the origin of the word, which is people.

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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He was political but not partisan.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Absolutely. He also took positions on things that mattered to him and got involved in them. He was a supporter of the anti-apartheid movement. He took a stand on the issue of protecting the Hill of Tara when the motorway was being built through it and he of course wrote the poem, From the Republic of Conscience, as his contribution to International Human Rights Day and was a supporter of Amnesty International. Consequently, his politics was a commitment, as was his poetry, to our shared humanity and to trying to look to a place where we could get beyond some of the conflicts and disputes, that is, to a better place in which our shared humanity would be at the centre of what we did and how our society was.

It also is important to mention he was extremely popular among many diverse writers, including those who perhaps had a different perspective on many things. I spoke to one such writer earlier, who is a much more politically engaged poet, but who recalled that he received his first bursary award from a board on which Seamus Heaney sat. He made the point that Seamus Heaney never was open to the idea of there being competition between poets but that he wished to nurture, encourage and support poetry of all kinds, as well as to assist younger poets and to uphold the importance and relevance of poetry to the world in which he lived. He certainly achieved that in spades, to coin a phrase.

If I may, I will conclude with the poem by him that inspired me. It probably is his most famous but it truly inspired me and sums up everything he set out to do and did during his life, namely, Digging.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner's bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it.
He dug a rich vein.

Photo of Peter MathewsPeter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent)
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I wish to express my thanks to the Heaney family, Marie, Michael, Christopher and Catherine Ann, for their attendance and presence in the Chamber today. The appreciations have been moving and full and have shown that Seamus Heaney had a wonderful life for which he was very grateful.

He understood his own soul, mind and heart, and he fulfilled his human potential with great generosity in his life. Personally, I felt moved in sharing his funeral farewell in Donnybrook church. Everybody who contributed to that made it a very lovely occasion. Seamus will live on. His appreciation is only in the early stages because his work lives on and is timeless. His life will remain in the mind's eye of everybody who knew him. He was kind, courteous and very human. He has given all of us, as a man, great example in how to live a family life and the life of an individual and to share with others the things he was good at and able to understand and appreciate. What more can I say?

On a practical note, we have moved from appreciation to the hard-nosed stuff. I noticed the interchange between the Minister and the Deputy. It is said that one campaigns in poetry and governs in prose.

7:15 pm

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Much of the time not in very good prose.

Photo of Peter MathewsPeter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent)
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We will conclude on that note.