Eamonn McCann

"Seamus was from Bellaghy. He was a boarder a couple of years ahead of me when I was a dayboy at St. Columb’s. The Bellaghy sometimes came out in him. He was head prefect, once clattered me on the back of the head in the senior study. “Nobody gets any work done when you’re disrupting everything around you” – something like that, which he seemed to imagine was a bad thing. Years later, I almost forgave him, on account of him winning the Nobel Prize."

(2020)

Van Morrison

I connect with Heaney on a level where he talks about the weather reports, you know. I think that’s where I connected with Heaney, ‘cos I did the same thing when I was a kid. He found that to be very poetic and so did I, you know. Rockall, Faroes, where they used to give the weather report on the radio, and eh, that’s kind of why I connect with him.

(1999)

Van Morrison by Bernard Farrell.

David Holmes

On his track 'Elsewhere Anchises' – which features Stephen Rea reading an extract from Heaney's translation of the Aeneid, Book VI...

"This extract was shown to me by my friend and one of Belfast’s finest actors Lalor Roddy because he thought it had a lot in common with a short film I directed called I Am Here, which deals with family and reconnection in the after world. It comes from a book called AENEID VI which was the last work Seamus Heaney translated before he passed, which made it even more special, as I consider this to be a very Northern Irish themed album. When I first read it I was stunned by the similarities and wrote a letter to Mick Heaney – Seamus’ son – asking for permission. The Heaney Family gave me it, which I am forever grateful for and the next step was securing the voice of another Northern Irish great, Stephen Rea. It was a perfect way to finish this album.”

(2016)

Imelda May

"My favourite poets are Rupi Kaur, Rita Ann Higgins and Leonard Cohen – but Seamus Heaney brings me back to the earth..."

(2021)

Imelda May at Nothing Compares: A Celebration of Irish Women Artists in Naas, Kildare. February 1st, 2023. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Manic Street Preachers' Nicky Wire

"I discovered Seamus Heaney’s The Spirit Level collection of poems through my brother, and for a couple of years during the ‘90s became obsessed with him and Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters, which came from a similar sort of place.

"I think Seamus was to Ireland what R.S. Thomas was to Wales – some sort of barometer of culture and wellbeing in the nation, which is a fucking amazing thing to achieve at that level. I think music’s hard, but being a poet is the hardest art form to ever make a living from. It takes a fucking long while to get there and even then the rewards are not that big.

“He had a face that was just full of love, I guess. Full of love and meaning…”

(2013)

Glen Hansard

"[I went from] studying Seamus Heaney in school to being in his gaff... Catherine Anne, Seamus’ daughter, was a friend of ours. It wasn’t even planned, we were just out walking and we ended up going into the gaff and sitting up in Seamus’ study, smoking. At the time I didn’t really have the awareness to breathe in that high sweet air, but it was an extraordinary experience in retrospect. Once I left school, it’s almost like my education began again...”

(2015)

Glen Hansard in Kildare. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Martin McGuinness

"[I'm a] huge fan of Seamus Heaney. I love poetry. I also write the odd poem..."

(2011)

Gary Lightbody

“Another thing I’d love to get over to Dublin for is the new Seamus Heaney exhibition. Johnny and myself were supposed to be playing a few acoustic songs as he read at a festival in St. Columb’s College in Derry, but he passed away a couple of months before. My favourite work of his is ‘Anahorish’, which Lisa Hannigan set to music. There’s sublime beauty in that poem. There is in all of them, but that one really strikes a chord with me.”

(2018)

Jackie Hayden

"At a time of political turmoil and widespread sectarian hatred in Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney resisted the stereotypes, and wrote the most marvellous, timeless poetry in that clear, modest, wonderfully nuanced voice of his. The literary world rejoiced when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. This island felt like a much bleaker place when he died in August 2013, at the age of just 74."

(2017)

Steve Earle

"That’s what I love about Ireland; there’s good theatre in any town of any size. And y’know, you get on a fuckin’ Aer Lingus airplane and Seamus Heaney’s in the in-flight magazine. I was in Galway when Ted Hughes died – an English poet died and it was one of the lead items on the RTE news. Believe me, they don’t give a fuck when a poet dies in the United States."

(2004)

Edel Coffey

"It would be nice to think I might get some dying words. I always think of Seamus Heaney’s dying words, ‘noli timere’ (don’t be afraid) as wonderful because they give strength to those left behind. Something like that would be good."

(2022)

Edel Coffey. Picture: Bríd O'Donovan

See more tributes below:

Paul Simon:

“Popular culture likes to house songwriters and poets under the same roof, but we are not the close family that some imagine. Poets are distant cousins at most, and labour under a distinctly different set of rules. Songwriters have melody, instrumentation and rhythm to colour their work and give it power; poets accomplish it all with words.

“Seamus, though, was one of those rare poets whose writing evokes music: the fiddles, pipes and penny-whistles of his Northern Irish culture and upbringing.”

President Michael D. Higgins:

“It is with the greatest sadness that I have heard of the passing of Seamus Heaney whose contribution to the republics of letters, conscience, and humanity was immense. As tributes flow in from around the world, as people recall the extraordinary occasions of the readings and the lectures, we in Ireland will once again get a sense of the depth and range of the contribution of Seamus Heaney to our contemporary world, but what those of us who have had the privilege of his friendship and presence will miss is the extraordinary depth and warmth of his personality.

"The presence of Seamus was a warm one, full of humour, care and courtesy – a courtesy that enabled him to carry with such wry Northern Irish dignity so many well-deserved honours from all over the world.

"Long before his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature which Sabina and I, and the late Davy Hammond attended with him as his guests, we were aware of his grace and his generosity. His careful delving, translation and attention to the work of other poets in different languages and often in conditions of unfreedom, meant that he provided them with an audience of a global kind. And we in Ireland gained from his scholarship and the breath of his reference.

"Generations of Irish people will have been familiar with Seamus’ poems. Scholars all over the world will have gained from the depth of the critical essays, and so many rights organisations will want to thank him for all the solidarity he gave to the struggles within the republic of conscience."

Michael D Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Bono:

"An extraordinary man. What a gift. And yet, it brought none of the bother that such a gift can bring; at least to my eyes it didn’t. [There was] none of the annoying arrogance, none of the creeping privilege that he speaks about in ‘From The Republic Of Conscience’, just elegance. He’s a quiet man that shuts the loudmouths up, isn't he really?

"I met him when I was 24 in Boston University. I went in and had the absolute madness and arrogance to read him some of my own work! And of course he was really encouraging but I look back at the work now and I go, ‘Oh my god… what was I thinking?’ A lesson in modesty, if you were interested in it.

“What Heaney did… he could take a kitchen table and turn it into storming the Bastille. I think the reason that he’s so well-read and loved everywhere is his love of every day detail of people’s lives and compromises people make for love and how huge a thing that is.”

Harvard University:

"We are fortunate and proud to have counted Seamus Heaney as a revered member of the Harvard family.

"For us, as for people around the world, he epitomised the poet as a wellspring of humane insight and artful imagination, subtle wisdom and shining grace. We will remember him with deep affection and admiration."

Rob Kearney:

"Seamus Heaney was the Martin Scorsese of poetry. Ireland are lucky to claim him as one of our own.