On this day 25 years ago: Seamus Heaney is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature

Listen to his acceptance speech and Nobel Lecture; plus ten defining quotes from his decades-long body of work

Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney reminiscing in the 'old' part of the library, where he studied when a young man, before he officially opened the new Linenhall Library in Belfast in 2000.

On this day twenty-five years ago, one of Ireland's most profound and beloved literary voices received international recognition and had his place in history cemented. 

Seamus Heaney, born in 1939 in the townland of Tamniaran, Northern Ireland, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on December 7th, 1995, "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."

Stream Heaney's Nobel Lecture in the player below.

He had long staked his claim to that place, beginning his body of work as a poet, writer and playwright in the 1960s. 

Heaney's 1966 breakthrough collection of poems, Death of a Naturalist, helped bring him to national and worldwide attention, a collection of 34 poems that brought to vivid life Heaney's childhood experiences in rural Ireland.

It set the tone for a decades-long body of work praised for its clarity, imagery, emotional grounding and perspective, placing the poet's output as a staple in the study of poetry in the English language.

Seamus Heaney and wife Marie, in the 1960s. Pic: John Riordan/BBC Pictures

He was recognised for his gifts and contributions to his artform in his lifetime, achieving national-treasure status in the literary community at home

Parallel to this, Heaney pursued a distinguished career as an academic, starting at St. Joseph's College and culminating in professorships and residencies in Harvard and Oxford universities, with academic John Sutherland, calling him "the greatest poet of our age".

To mark the occasion, here are ten excerpts selected from poems across his body of work and correspondence.

Poetry as contemplation and self-reflection

I rhyme

To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

- from 'Personal Helicon', Eleven Poems, 1965

ON THE POET AND THE WORKING MAN:

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

- from 'Digging', Death of a Naturalist, 1966

ON MAINTAINING A BALANCE:

God is a foreman with certain definite views 
Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.

- from 'Docker', Death of a Naturalist, 1966

ON THE FLEETING NATURE OF THINGS:

Once off the bush 
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. 
It wasn't fair 
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

- from 'Blackberry Picking', Death of a Naturalist, 1966

Poet Laureate Seamus Heaney leans on part of Ean Mur, an 8ft tall bronze sculpture by Breon O'Casey, son of Dublin playwright Sean at Farmleigh House in Dublin. Pic: Niall Carson/PA.

ON MOTIVES TO CREATE:

The main thing is to write for the joy of it. 
Cultivate a work-lust that imagines its haven like your hands at night, dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast.
You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.
Take off from here.

- from 'Station Island', 1989

URGING HOPE, AND CITED BY LEADERS:

History says don't hope 
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime 
The longed for tidal wave 
Of justice can rise up 
And hope and history rhyme.

- from 'Doubletake', The Cure at Troy, 1990

Read by US President Joe Biden in 2020, as part of his electoral campaign.

WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO:

Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.

- from Heaney's 1999 reinterpretation of Middle-English epic Beowulf

ON HIS WORK'S MUSICALITY:

"I don't mean sound as decoration or elaboration, but the actual cadence that moves the thing along."

- from one of Heaney's interviews with author Dennis O'Driscoll, as published in his book Stepping Stones, 2009.

LAST WORDS:

"Noli timere."

- Heaney's reported last words, translating as 'Don't be afraid', in a text message to his wife, August 2013.

WORDS TO LIVE BY:

Walk on air against your better judgement.

- from The Gravel Walks, The Spirit Level, published in 1996. Cited in his 1995 Nobel speech, and adorning his gravestone in Bellaghy, Northern Ireland.