Ralph Waldo Emerson professor of poetry at Harvard University, from 1998 to 2006.
Irish poet Seamus Heaney. Associated Press file photo Seamus Heaney, Ireland's beloved poet and scholar who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, has died in a Dublin hospital at the age of 74, according to his publisher, Faber & Faber.
Among his followers on this side of the Atlantic is U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, who often quoted him in his speeches and writing.
"Seamus Heaney was one of the greatest and most distinguished poets of the last century," Neal said.
"His contribution to literature rivals the works of Irish giants like Yeats, Joyce and Beckett. A Nobel Prize winner, his powerful words became universal, capturing the hearts and minds of people around the world. I was particularly fond of his play, 'Cure at Troy,; which made a lasting impression on me during to the process that brought peace to the island of Ireland. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends."
Heaney was the Ralph Waldo Emerson professor of poetry at Harvard University, from 1998 to 2006. Heaney, who gave a reading at UMass-Amherst in 2000, was the author of 13 volumes of poetry, including "Death of a Naturalist, as well as two plays and other works. Among his most famous pieces is his one-of-a-kind translation of the eighth-century poem "Beowulf," published in 2000.
Heaney's work reflected both the rural life he knew as a young boy as well as Ireland's sectarian troubles. His poem, “Requiem for the Croppies,” paid tribute to the Irish rebels of 1798. and was published on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.
When President John F. Kennedy made his historic visit to Ireland in 1963, the speakers included Heaney. Heaney was also among the first group elected into Aosdana, the National Irish Arts Council.
Heaney, born on the family farm in Northern Ireland, the first of nine children, was the third Irishman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, joining William Butler Yeats and Samuel Beckett. He learned both Irish and Latin at a Catholic boarding school in Northern Ireland, and went on to graduate with a first class honors degree from Queens University in Belfast.
" We are blessed to call Seamus Heaney our own and thankful for the gift of him in our national life. ... There are no words to describe adequately our nation's and poetry's grief at the passing of Seamus Heaney," said Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Heaney's death.
In selecting Heaney, the Nobel committee said he produced "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."
In 1965, Heaney married school teacher Marie Devlin, a County Ardhoe native who in 1994, published "Over Nine Waves," a collection of Irish legends.
Heaney had suffered a stroke in 2006.