 —  October – November 2013
T
WENTY-five years ago, Italians
were aware of just three famous
Irishmen: James Joyce, Bobby Sands
and Liam Brady. In the intervening
years, these names remained
constant, and some others were
added: Bono, Sinéad O’Connor
and, since  when he won
the Nobel Prize, Séamus Heaney.
For Italians, the pronunciation
of Séamus and Sinéad is compli-
cated by the inexplicable Irish
shh sound at the start. “Bono”
poses no such challenge.
So, even here in Italy, where
few have passable English and
fewer still read willingly, Séamus
Heaney was known. Every time
he set foot outside the country,
which was often, he travelled as
a representative not just of Irish
culture but of the idea that the
Irish were cultured. A country
that could be represented by a
poet was by extension a poetic
country.
The stories of Séamus’ kind-
ness, his unpretentious manner
and willingness to give time to
the least of his fans are legion. He
was, indeed, a gentle and gener-
ous man, and perhaps the best
ambassador we could hope for. But he was
not an unassuming man.
Heaney was very cognisant of his own
representative weight. He consciously
assumed the mantel of Ireland’s leading poet
and cultural legate. Who he took it from is
a moot point – perhaps Thomas Moore,
perhaps WB Yeats. (The post, if it exists,
may skip a generation or two).
Heaney may not have put on airs,
but he travelled and operated as
an internationally-recognised
poet. When he displayed humil-
ity and grace, as he so often did,
it felt like he was rehabilitating
the role of the public poet from
some of the arrogant scoundrels
of the past.
I met him here in Rome
shortly before his death. It was a
moving experience for me to meet
a man whom I had not seen in a
long time, but was a central fig-
ure in my childhood. As a family,
we would visit him in his cottage
in Glanmore in Wicklow. It was a
place of isolation, peace, silence
and immersion in nature but
what I remember, even more viv-
idly, is the bitter cold and damp
of the place. I remember the lack
of toys, and the absence of lux-
uries and playthings in general.
It was the home of a serious man,
dedicated to the almost hopeless
task of making it through poetry
alone. It was clear to me then that Séamus
was willing to pay a high price in hardship for
the sake of his craft. He deserved his success
if only for those small smoky fires that did
little to dispel the chill of the Wicklow hills
that surrounded him. But when he registered
his sons in the local primary school, his pro-
fession was written down, in Irish, as file. He
knew what he was. He was not unassuming.
Some of the stories about Séamus have
him signing a book, encouraging a writer,
or writing a poem for a couple in a restau-
rant. These are the actions of a professional
and a celebrity. People like to remember
how he often seemed like a fish out of water,
standing there with his shy lopsided smile
amongst the diplomats, politicians, rich and
the famous. But this was the water he swam
in: this was his milieu. He was the man who
had written himself into a poet, and now,
as a poet, he liked to stand there reminding
people that he was but a man.
Heaney was aware of the contrast
between his rock-star schedule of confer-
ences and visits, planes, VIPs and hotels and
his down-to-earth, earthy self. His public
persona, however, was not at odds with the
young man in an isolated cottage writing
himself into literary history. He dug deep
into his own private memories, but the point
of all that digging was to create something
of beauty for public consumption. This may
be true of all artists, but Heaney was both
better than most artists, and more public
than many.
Heaney’s early poetry in particular
makes constant reference to his roots, the
soil, the depths of history. His declaration of
intent is set out in ‘Digging’, the first poem in
his first collection, ‘Death of a Naturalist’.
He
deserved
his success
if only for
those small
smoky res
that did
little to
dispel the
chill of the
Wicklow
hills that
surrounded
him
“
CULTURE sÉamus heaney
Séamus Heaney,
the public man
Frugal and gentle but political and not
unassuming, he conquered all. By Conor Deane
caption

simply, the most famous poet of the English
language. Now it was the canon of English
poetry that was contained within Heaney,
rather than vice versa.
Heaney became our all-conquering
hero, taking over Northern Ireland, Ireland,
England, America and even moving into
Europe via Dante, Rilke, Mandelstam,
Pascoli et al. He made