Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I think today, Marie, is a day to celebrate rather than to look back on the occasion of what happened a few weeks ago. I cannot claim to have been a friend of Seamus but feel as though I knew him as a friend, as I think did everyone else. We knew him through his words and through his personality. I would prefer to touch on his personality at this stage, as well as his words, because I have heard so many stories over the years. One occurred quite recently, when my wife, Denise, and I were in Galway and went out for a meal in Moran's on the Weir. This was perhaps a month or six weeks ago, when Sheila Moran came over to us to tell us how only that morning, she had had a little visit from Seamus himself. He came in for a cup of coffee, I am unsure if Marie was with him or if he was on his own. In any event, she told me the story of how he had been there before and she knew of a poem which mentioned Moran's. She had had it typed out and wanted it framed and was hoping he would sign it. However, when he had come in and she had asked him to sign it, he said he would not but that he would write it out again. He hand-wrote it out and I gather it has been framed there ever since.

It is these little stories about how everyone felt he or she knew him and that he was his or her friend. Anne Ó Broin has worked with me for more than 27 years and her father was a poet or liked to be a poet and did his best. She told me that he just loved it. Coming up to his 80th birthday, which was perhaps ten or 12 years ago as he died last year, she wondered what she could get for him. She decided to get him an anthology of Seamus's work. As she knew where the family lived, she wrote to Seamus and, having enclosed a stamped addressed envelope, asked him whether he would sign the anthology. However, he did not sign it but instead wrote a lovely warm letter to her father for his 80th birthday and I can tell Marie that the book and that letter are highly valued. It seems to me that these are the memories people have of this wonderful man. They are the memories we all have, as well as the feeling that we knew him so well.

Approximately eight years ago, I got a present from friends of a lovely handwritten letter from Seamus Heaney to me. I really appreciated it and have found it to be something I value a great deal. It is a lovely poem, which I will read. I had originally intended to read the poem Digging from the collection Death of a Naturalist but my colleague, Senator Ó Domhnaill, beat me to it by reading it approximately half an hour ago and I will read this poem instead. Incidentally, I did have a falling out with Seamus about 20 or 30 years ago, because I became very jealous and envious of him. My wife returned to UCD to study literature and I found that she became infatuated and so I became very jealous and envious. While I am unsure whether she ever met him, she continued to talk about him.

That Christmas, when looking for a present for her, I actually bought a lovely framed version of Digging from Death of a Naturalist. We have it at home and it is very valued on that basis. The envy disappeared very quickly through the love of the poem. However, let me just explain what is the poem on the lovely gift I received in 2005. It is called Colmcille the Scribe and it is a version by Seamus Heaney of an early Irish poem beginning, "Sgith mo crob on scríbinn". The poet translated the poem to celebrate his enrolment as a member of the Royal Irish Academy at the Guildhall, Derry, on 9 June 1997. To mark the 1400th anniversary of the death of Colmcille, Dr. Heaney commissioned Tim O'Neill, the calligrapher and authority on early Irish manuscripts, to write the poem on vellum and he presented it to the academy on the occasion of his admission as a member. I am honoured to have one of 150 copies of that poem and it is greatly valued by me. Therefore, having this lovely message from Seamus is very valued. While I am sure I will not do it justice, I will read the poem to Marie. It is called Colmcille the Scribe and is from the 11th century:

My hand is cramped from penwork.
My quill has a tapered point.
Its bird-mouth issues a blue-dark
Beetle-spark of ink.

Wisdom keeps welling in streams
From my fine-drawn, sallow hand:
Riverrun on the vellum
of ink from green-skinned holly.

My small runny pen keeps going
Through books, through thick and thin
To enrich the scholars' holdings:
penwork that cramps my hand.

It is from the 11th century Irish and is signed by Seamus. It is something that I value. We all very much value the wonderful memories we have of Seamus, the work he has done, the words he has given us and the great pleasure he has given to so many people over the years.