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BELOVED OF IRELAND, Seamus Heaney graced the front pages of the vast majority of national newspapers this morning but he is also mourned further afield.
A graceful image of the 74-year-old Nobel Laureate features prominently in today’s edition of the New York Times above the headline, “He Wove Irish Strife and Soil Into Silken Verse”.
An article by Margalit Fox remembers the poet for his work that “powerfully evoked the beauty and blood that together have come to define the modern Irish condition”.
According to the author, Heaney “repeatedly explored the strife and uncertainties that have afflicted his homeland, while managing simultaneously to steer clear of polemic”.
Throughout his work, Mr. Heaney was consumed with morality. In his hands, a peat bog is not merely an emblematic feature of the Irish landscape; it is also a spiritual quagmire, evoking the deep ethical conundrums that have long pervaded the place.
“At its best, Mr. Heaney’s work had both a meditative lyricism and an airy velocity. His lines could embody a dark, marshy melancholy, but as often as not they also communicated the wild onrushing joy of being alive.
The result — work that was finely wrought yet notably straightforward — made Mr. Heaney one of the most widely read poets in the world.
A note from the editorial board of the paper also pays tribute to the Derry native.
“Mr. Heaney is remembered for the power of his joy in working the language, and in the spirit of his elegiacal salute to his friend Robert Lowell: “The way we are living,/ timorous or bold,/ will have been our life,” writes Francis X Clines.
Seamus Heaney will be laid to rest in Bellaghy Cemetery in Derry on Monday evening following a funeral mass at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Donnybrook, Dublin 4. His removal to the church has been arranged for 6.45pm tomorrow.
Books of Condolence will open next week in Belfast and Dublin.
Heaney passed away unexpectedly on Friday after a short illness.
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Meaningless debate between a bunch of No Hopers clogging up the field.
The Real Discussion is happening right now over on Twitter.
@Tommy Haze: You mean it’s not a bunch of lunatics shouting at each other like it is here?
@Tommy Haze: trump is home and hosed
Wrongly claim ‘climate change is a hoax’ according to the author! Only her opinion!!!
@Eugene Kelly: Well, her and ~97% of the global scientific community.
@Eugene Kelly: One’s entitlement to an opinion should be predicated on it being well-supported by evidence, logic and argument. In the author’s case, it is.
@Eugene Kelly: Here is the deal. Ramaswamy fully understands the reality of climate change. He chose words carefully, not calling climate change a hoax ,but calling the “climate agenda” a hoax.
Vaswamy is extremely smart, and his objective is to become president, so you should not expect anything he says to reflect his actual opinion. He is modelling himself on his perception of what the republican base wants, and giving soundbites that are provocation enough to stay in headlines, with just semantic ambiguity to be able to spin it back to a general voter if he becomes the nominee.
Look on the bright side. They are all at least 40 years younger than biden.biden needs an old folks home at this stage
@reg morrisey: “at this stage” – you weirdos have been saying that for years while he’s been demonstrating himself to be a lot sharper, smoother, and infinitely more competent, than you. :)
@Joe Philips: Thankfully Biden has been there to support Ukraine.
russia might well be at the borders of Poland and Romania by now, with another people condemned to russian oppression. Probably Moldova too.
And he has gone a long way to recover the US economy, and straighten out the corruption of the Trump “administration”.
Although I would have preferred another to Biden, he has done better that I expected. But his administration has been far too soft on US Republican corruption, in my opinion.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: Biden (and I agree with you that he wouldn’t be my choice either – and definitely is too old for 2024) has managed to surprise people with the amount of legislation his administration have been able to negotiate passage through Congress. Meanwhile Trump was ranked 43rd worst president by the Siena College Research Institute. This means Trump has ‘broken through’ the Civil War era bottom 3 of Pierce, Johnson and Buchanan for the first time (previously C-Span ranked him 42nd). Bide was given a ranking of 19th by the Siena College Research Institute.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: I fully agree with you there. And I don’t think there’s anyone else that would’ve done as well as he has.
I should’ve said “but” rather than “and” there, and probably shouldn’t have said “fully”
@Numinous20111: Who would be your choice?
@Joe Philips: I think Biden was a good pragmatic choice in 2020, but he should always have been a one term president. I understand it is tricky having a serving president and a new candidate at the same time (who speaks for the party’s policy platform and general attitude?, does the president catch criticism for anything the candidate does or says & vice versa?)…….probably Warren, but there isn’t a Democratic candidate who is in a really strong position either. Buttigieg would appear to be the front-runner after Biden’s era.
@Numinous20111: Buttigieg or Jeffries, I reckon. I disagree about the one-term thing, though, and I think his shortcomings/mishaps are grossly, purposely, and often ridiculously exaggerated.
That lot make all of ours look good.
@Steve O’Hara Smith.: no they don’t.
@Lorne Malvo: They do Lorne, bot Democrats and Republicans make ours look “better”, I wouldn’t say “good”. But that’s like saying “oh yeah, I rather get the flu than breaking my leg”.
@J Ven: Nonsense.
In my opinion any man that thinks its OK to interfere in a womans reproduction, is a frightened little boy
@Robert Halvey: Its a complicated and nuanced topic.
Excellent report and analysis.
Viewership for the RNC debate on Fox was 23.9m. That was very good. Apparently it was a record for an RNC debate.
On ‘X’ Trump’s chat with Tucker had 74m views.
However, I’d imagine a lot of those could be foreign viewers.
I’d have a question for the author of this piece.
Apparently the 1st question put to the debaters was in relation to the song ‘Richmen north of Richmond’.
Why was that deemed not worthy of inclusion in this piece?
@Monetpenny: If you scroll on ‘X’ and go past that video and the video plays for tenth of a second it counts as a view… Imagine the push for this “interview” on ‘X’ feeds and how many people scrolled past it in their feed… Makey up numbers to suit an agenda.
OMB gonna break X tonight
@Oh Mammy: Its Trump v Biden and God help America.
Nikki haley probably spoke the best out of a bad bunch. Although the line about chatgpt was fairly funny. Bit of an excercise in pointlessnesss all the same as it looks like the cowardly auld lad afraid to speak is a shoe in for the nomination.
Its like I line up of pedophiles trying to prove who is the lesser pedo.
@: We speak proper English in Ireland. All this talk of ‘pedo…’ highlights the red white and blue in you. Personally, I’ve always found it weird and creepy when people throw those words around. It smacks of projection.
@Lorne Malvo: ‘I’ll air my opinion on that if and when that issue is raised anywhere.’ It was raised.. and so that discussion begins. it’s not rocket science. You initiated the discussion. Stop hiding behind ‘but it isn’t in the article’ malarkey.
You’re advocating a barter system involving childcare.. but you don’t want to talk about the children who are central to this barter system. it’s a tangent apparently.. Christ.
You don’t see any problems with childminding being included in a barter system? Like none.. zip.. nada..?
Also, I’ve addressed the student side of this twice now and you’ve conveniently ignored that one.
have your say