Seamus Heaney was born near Castledawson, Londonderry, and grew up on his father's farm. He attended St. Columb's College, Derry (1951-57). He graduated from Queen's University, Belfast and was then trained as teacher at St. Joseph's College of Education. Heaney worked then as a secondary school teacher one year and returned to St. Josephs, where he was a lecturer for three years. In 1966 he became a lecturer at Queen University.

In 1972 Heaney gave up his work at Queen's. Partly to escape the turmoil and tensions of Belfast, he moved from to County Wicklow, where he was a freelance writer for three years. He then taught at Carysfort College of Education until 1981. Next year, after spending frequent periods as a guest professor at American universities, he was appointed visiting professor at Harvard. Since 1985 he has been there as Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory. Between the years 1989 and 1994 he held Professorship of Poetry at Oxford.

Heaney's first collection of poems, ELEVEN POEMS, appeared in 1965. He won in 1966 the Eric Gregory Award with DEATH OF A NATURALIST, and establised his reputation as a poet. After NORTH (1975), in which Heanley addressed the ongoing civil strife in Northern Ireland, he was considered the finest Irish poet since W.B. Yeats and with Ted Hughes among the leading poets in English. Heaney's works have developed from the early clotted expression to greater simplicity and clarity. His poems evoke Irish history and draw on myth and unique aspects of the Irish experience.

The political situation In Northern Ireland begins to be explored in North and Field Work (1979), from the standpoint of Heaney's Catholic background. However, Heaney has been consistent in his refusal to reduce complex political and social issues to simple slogans. Strong individualistic, meditative mood marks his later works, including STATION ISLAND (1984), THE HAW LANTERN (1987), and SEEING THINGS (1991). His poems have often been allegorical and he has drawn on the Divine Comedy of Dante and on the work of such contemporary central European writers as Czeslaw Milosz.

For further reading:Seamus Heaney by B. Morrison; The Art of Seamus Heaney, ed. by T. Curtis; Seamus Heaney by N. Corcoran

Selected works:

• ELEVEN POEMS, 1965
• DEATH OF A NATURALIST, 1966
• THE ISLAND PEOPLE, 1968
• DOOR INTO THE DARK, 1969
• THE LAST MUMMER, 1969
• A LOUGH NEAGH SEQUENCE, 1969
• A BOY DRIVING HIS FATHER TO CONFESSION, 1970
• CATHERINE'S POEM, 1970
• NIGHT DRIVE, 1970
• CHAPLET, 1971
• LAND, 1971
• SERVANT BOY, 1971
• JANUARY GOD, 1972
• WINTERING OUT, 1972
• BOG POEMS, 1975
• TWO DECADES OF IRISH WRITING, 1975 (ed. D. Dunn)
• NORTH, 1975
• STATIONS, 1975
• FOUR POEMS, 1976
• GLANMORE SONNETS, 1977
• ROBERT LOWELL: A MEMORIAL ADDRESS, 1978
• RICHARD MURPHY, POEDT OF TWO TRADITIONS, 1978 (ed. M. Harman)
• AFTER SUMMER, 1978
• CHRISTMAS EVE, 1978
• A FAMILY ALBUM, 1978
• FIELD WORK, 1979
• GRAVITIES, 1979
• UGOLIMO, 1979
• ed.: ANTHOLOGY: ARVON FOUNDATION POETRY COMPETITION, 1980 (with T. Hughes)
• THE MAKING OF MUSIC, 1980
• PREOCCUPATIONS, 1980
• CHANGES, 1980
• SELECTED POEMS 1965-1975, 1980
• TOOME, 1980
• HOLLY, 1981
• SWEENEY PRAISES THE TREES, 1981
• JAMES JOYCE AND MODERN LITERATURE (ed. W.J. McCormack and A. Stead)
• CONTEMPORARY IRIS ART, 1982 (ed. R. Knowles)
• CHECHOV ON SAKHALIN, 1982
• ed.: THE RATTLEBAG, 1982 (with T. Hughes)
• THE NAMES OF THE HARE, 1982
• REMEMBERING MALIBU, 1982
• SWEENEY AND THE SAINT, 1982
• SWEENEY ASTARY, 1982
• VERSES FOR A FORDHAM COMMENCEMENT, 1982
• A HAZEL STICK FOR CATHERINE ANN, 1983
• AN OPEN LETTER, 1983
• AMONG SCHOOLCHILDREN, 1983
• HAILSTONES, 1984
• STATION ISLAND, 1984 FROM THE REPUBLIC OF CONSCIENCE, 1985
• CLEARANCES, 1986
• TOWARDS A COLLABORATION, 1986
• THE HAW LANTERN, 1987
• THE GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE, 1988
• AN UPSTAIRS OUTLOOK, 1989 (with M. Longley)
• THE REDRESS OF POETRY, 1990 NEW SELECTED POEMS 1966-87, 1990
• THE TREE CLOCK, 1990
• SEEING THINGS, 1991
• THE CURE AT TROY, 1991 (from Sophocles' play Philoctetes)
• SWEENEY'S FLIGHT, 1992
• ed.: THE MAY ANTHOLOGY OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE POETRY, 1993
• JOY OR NIGHT, 1993
• translation: THE MIDNIGHT VERDICT, 1993 (from B. Merriman and Ovid)