NOBEL LAUREATE Seamus Heaney reflected on a life that had been “unusually blessed” as more than 400 friends, family members and artists gathered to celebrate the poet’s 70th birthday in Dublin yesterday.
The tribute at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham included the first performance by the RTÉ Vanbrugh String Quarter of three works inspired by his poems; the launch of a 15-CD box set of his work; the opening of an Irish Museum of Modern Art exhibition dedicated to him; the launch of an RTÉ documentary on the poet, which will be aired tonight; and a birthday address by Mr Heaney, broadcast live on RTÉ Radio, and online around the world.
The celebrations, which were in planning for more than a year, were organised by RTÉ and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, with the support of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.
Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Martin Cullen offered his congratulations to the poet, saying he had made “and continues to make an extraordinary contribution to our cultural life”.
Speaking to reporters before the tribute, Mr Heaney said he had “considerable unease” about the celebrations when they were first mooted by RTÉ. “At the same time there was such a distinction and genuineness about what was being offered, I thought it would be very high and mighty to decline it.”
He said he was now overwhelmed by the generosity of it all. “But you have to keep your sense of proportion in this case.” As well as the mystery of poetry there was the marketing of product, he said, “and commodification comes with a certain amount of artistic acceptance”.
He said he was often asked about the value of poetry at times of economic recession but it was at moments of such crises that people returned to the realisation that we did not live by economics alone. “If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.”
Asked if he would focus on different issues if he was starting out as a poet again, he said: “Issues aren’t necessarily for poetry . . . It’s a way of becoming what you might be meant to be. It’s a step towards identity.”
In his birthday address, he told the gathering he was “honoured beyond measure”.
"From the moment my first book, Death of a Naturalist, appeared in 1966, when I was 27, until this happy birthday, with 10 more books behind me, during that whole time my work has been favourably received and I have been given credit and accord and awards of a sort I could never have imagined during the first two decades of my life," he said.
Mr Heaney said he had always felt cautious about being honoured because honours could create a profile larger than life.
“We should keep our feet on the ground to signify that nothing is beneath us, but we should also lift up our eyes to say nothing is beyond us,” he said.
Having seen the tribute coming together, he said he had no longer mixed feelings about it. “This is a totally luminous occasion,” he said. “I am utterly grateful for the tonic of these tributes. They are not retirement presents but ratifications and refreshments.”
The wheel had come full circle, he said, but only to turn once more. He would continue to live “obligated and elevated, more happily than ever. Ever after.”
