Related News
Ireland grieves beloved poet’s death
Print Edition
Ireland mourned the loss of its Nobel laureate poet, Seamus Heaney, with equal measures of poetry and pain yesterday in a funeral full of grace notes and a final message from the great man himself: Don’t be afraid.
Among those packing the pews of Dublin’s Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart were government leaders from both parts of Ireland, poets and novelists, Bono and The Edge from rock band U2, and former Lebanese hostage Brian Keenan.
Ireland’s foremost uilleann piper, Liam O’Flynn, played a wailing lament before family members and friends offered a string of readings from the Bible and their own often lyrical remembrances of the country’s most celebrated writer of the late 20th century. The 90-minute service ended with a cellist’s rendition of the childhood bedtime classic, “Brahms’s Lullaby.”
Heaney won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995 in recognition of his wide-ranging writings inspired by the rural wonders of Ireland, the strife of his native Northern Ireland, the ancient cultures of Europe, of Catholic faith and Celtic mysticism, and the immutability of family ties. He died on Friday in a hospital at the age of 74.
In a tribute delivered from the pulpit, one of Heaney’s three children revealed his final words: a text message from his hospital bed to his wife, Marie.
Michael Heaney said the words, “written a few minutes before he passed away, were in his beloved Latin. And they read: ‘Noli timere.’ Don’t be afraid.” That revelation opened a ripple of tears in the audience, including from Marie and his only daughter Catherine in the front row beside the flower-topped coffin.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
