The man who turned down a queen and accepted a king

Seamus Heaney once turned down the offer to be considered for the role of Poet Laureate, an office created by royalty and whose main role is still to write verse celebrating major royal occasions.  'I've nothing against the Queen personally,' he said, 'it’s just that the basis of my imagination, the basis of the cultural starting point, is off-centre.' 

 

Seamus Heaney, the boy from Bellaghy who became one of the most famous poets and writers in the world, has died

 

The great poet, who has died today at the age of 74, was born in Northern Ireland and was a nationalist who made his home in the Republic of Ireland from 1972.  He did accept the title of Saoi, an equivalent to national poet in the Republic, but always maintained that his politics precluded him from being considered as Poet Laureate in the UK.

 

Seamus Heaney at University College, Dublin in 2009.  He was giving readings up until a fortnight before his death

(photo Sean O'Connor)

 

There were no politics to complicate the award of the greatest literary prize of his career.  In 1995 he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm.  That prize is decided by committee and the king hands out the medal and scroll to the recipients after the choice has been made.  For Heaney, it was the highpoint of a lifetime of work that garnered many awards and in which he constantly rededicated himself to words and poetry by encouraging others to strive to achieve what he had.

 

 

Seamus Heaney, Nobel laureate, at the prize giving ceremony in Stockholm in December 1995