‘As modest and kindly as he was gifted’

Nobel poet laureate Seamus Heaney has been remembered as one of Ireland’s finest literary minds following his death after a short illness. The farmer’s son died in hospital in Dublin aged 74.

Friends, contemporaries, and politicians, as well as admirers, revealed a humble, warm, funny, and open man as tributes flowed in from around the world.

Books of condolence are also to be opened at Belfast City Hall on Monday and the Guildhall, Derry.