"... a gentle man , a very fine poet ..." - by Allan Massie

Seamus Heaney: Greatest Irish Poet since Yeats
by
Allan Massie
(The Telegraph/Culture/August 30th, 2013)
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Setting out on a tour of literary landmarks with Seamus Heaney and Karl Miller, Andrew O’Hagan remembered Miller mischievously saying, “let’s see if we can get Seamus to say something nasty about anyone”. They didn’t succeed, though in one hotel where the landlord or landlady – I forget which – made some distasteful remarks, Heaney quietly picked up his whisky, and perhaps the bottle too, and took it up to his bed. This little story, told affectionately, says a lot about him. Seamus Heaney was a gentle man, as well as a very fine poet, but one with a clear sense of what was right and wrong, fitting or unsuitable.

By common consent he was the greatest Irish poet since Yeats, and a nicer man than Yeats. The appeal of his poetry was both wide and deep. It was read and admired by fellow-poets, to whom he was by all accounts unfailingly helpful and encouraging, and academics, but also by schoolchildren and people who might have been surprised to find themselves liking poems. His work was both popular and subtle. His poems made sense at a first reading, and usually more and deeper sense at a second or third one. He was a deft and scrupulous craftsman, who thought hard about the technique of verse-making; yet his best poems give the impression of spontaneity.

He came from an Ulster farming family, and his roots were in the land. Like Thomas Hardy, whose work he admired and sometimes echoed, he wrote with deep sympathy of humble people leading a  hard life. Growing up a Catholic in County Derry he had a natural sympathy with the Civil Rights  movement of his youth, but he abhorred violence. Inasmuch as his work had any political message, its tendency was to promote reconciliation between the different strands of Irish nationality.

He became an international celebrity, courted by the Mighty, and wasn’t damaged by the experience, walking with Presidents and Prime Ministers, yet keeping the common touch. This was not the least remarkable thing about him.