Seamus Heaney - From Belfast to Wicklow

From Belfast to Wicklow

After leaving St Columb's College in 1957, Seamus Heaney went to Queen's University Belfast, where he graduated with a first class honours degree. He then attended St Joseph's Teacher Training College, where he eventually became a lecturer. Heaney and a number of other young poets, including Derek Mahon and Michael Longley, met as the Belfast Group under the guidance of Philip Hobsbaum. Faber and Faber published his first collection of poetry, "Death of a Naturalist", in 1966. In the same year, he was appointed lecturer at Queen's, but he left in 1972 and moved to County Wicklow to concentrate on his writing.

"Sectarian Differences Mattered Nil"

In the second of a two-part interview with John Quinn for the programme "My Education", Seamus Heaney reminisces about going to Belfast to study at Queen's University. While there, he studied English and grew to like Anglo-Saxon writing. University life also offered the chance to meet students from different backgrounds, and despite an initial tendency to stick with one's own, this soon opened out.

Encounters with Books and Poets

Seamus Heaney recalls the reading he did on leaving university and Philip Hobsbaum setting up the writers' workshop known as the Group. He talks about meeting other young poets and getting his own work published.

"Of Course There Was Absolute Delight At Being Published"

Speaking to Mike Murphy, Seamus Heaney explains how a group of young poets met to share and criticise each other's work under the guidance of Philip Hobsbaum. Heaney also recalls his feelings on the publication of his first book "Death of a Naturalist".

From Belfast to Wicklow

Throughout his career, Seamus Heaney has often been asked about leaving Belfast in 1972. In a television interview from 1976, he describes the circumstances that led to him leaving his job at Queen's University to live and write in Glenmore, Wicklow. In another clip recorded twenty years later, Heaney talks again about the decision to leave the North and the political conditions in Ulster in the early 1970s. He reads from 'Whatever You Say, Say Nothing'.