Seamus Heaney

From Mossbawn, Co. Derry. Nobel laureate 1995. Death of a Naturalist (1966) through Human Chain (2010): the poetry moves from rural childhood to the pressure of the Troubles (North, 1975), to the visionary lightness of Seeing Things, to late elegy. Also a major translator — Beowulf, Sweeney Astray, Sophocles. The most widely read poet in English of the last half-century. The Ireland Chair of Poetry was established in 1998 to commemorate his Nobel; the Seamus Heaney Centre at QUB and Seamus Heaney HomePlace at Bellaghy are named for him.