Seamus Heaney - Interview - Seamus Heaney died aged 74.
Seamus Heaney, acclaimed by many as the best Irish poet since Yeats, has died aged 74.
Born in County Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1939, Seamus Heaney was the eldest of nine children in a Catholic family. After receiving a degree in English from Queen's University in 1961, Heaney worked as a school teacher, then for several years as a freelancer. In 1975, he was appointed to a position in the English department at a college of education in Dublin, where he trained student teachers until 1981. Harvard University invited him for one term in 1979 and soon after, a part-time arrangement was proposed, allowing Heaney to teach the spring semester then return to Ireland and his family. In 1984 he was elected the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard. As well, from 1989 to 1994 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. After being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, Heaney resigned from the Boylston Chair, but will still be affiliated with Harvard as a v…
Born in County Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1939, Seamus Heaney was the eldest of nine children in a Catholic family. After receiving a degree in English from Queen's University in 1961, Heaney worked as a school teacher, then for several years as a freelancer. In 1975, he was appointed to a position in the English department at a college of education in Dublin, where he trained student teachers until 1981. Harvard University invited him for one term in 1979 and soon after, a part-time arrangement was proposed, allowing Heaney to teach the spring semester then return to Ireland and his family. In 1984 he was elected the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard. As well, from 1989 to 1994 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. After being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, Heaney resigned from the Boylston Chair, but will still be affiliated with Harvard as a v…