Bono tribute to Heaney

The service was brought to a close by piper Liam O’Flynn’s playing of ‘Port na bPucai’.
Talking this morning on Pat Kenny’s first Newstalk show, Bono said: “I’m sure the whole country is mourning as well as his family. Incredible people. 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?’”
Responding to Pat’s assertion that, “I always thought of him as a graceful man”, Bono added, “Grace is the best word, I could think… with a bit of mischief thrown in. Grace and mischief, because he could pull a few legs. There’s a wryness there that’s fantastic. He would drink with a slightly conspiratorial look in his eye. There’s comedy and that’s great and here’s this towering talent. 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.”
In a moving address, his son Michael revealed that Seamus had been in contact with his wife Marie just minutes before he passed away.
“His last few words in a text message in his favourite Latin were ‘nolle timere’, ‘don’t be afraid’,” Michael said.
It was a gorgeous “good bye” to the Derryman that Dublin and the rest of the country adopted as their own.