To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of Seamus Heaney, RTÉ presents a series of essential recordings from the archives.
The poetry collection District and Circle was published in 2006. It came forty years after the publication of Seamus Heaney's first, and life changing collection Death of a Naturalist published by Faber in 1966. With that first collection the rural and the commonplace became sacred and celebrated as his Mossbawn farm in Co Derry became familiar to readers.
District and Circle unites that sense of the local with global concerns opening with the snedding of turnips but encompassing a journey on the London underground, alongside reflections on the melting of glaciers and certain fallen towers. It was Seamus Heaney’s first collection in five years and catches the poet on and off guard, articulating the 21st century's unsettling start.
In this edition of RTÉ Radio One’s Rattlebag Heaney is in conversation with its presenter by Myles Dungan, at the time of the publication of District and Circle.
