Michael Longley is a poet who has "looked history square in the face" and who also played an important civic part in the creation of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, President Michael D Higgins said in Belfast.
Mr Higgins was one of several VIP guests in the Ulster Hall, where 75-year-old Mr Longley was made a freeman of Belfast, following in a line of artists such as fellow poet John Hewitt and singer Van Morrison.
The honour was bestowed on Mr Longley by Belfast City Council following the unanimous endorsement of a proposal from SDLP councillor Claire Hanna.
“I am deeply moved by this great honour - the freedom of the city which is still my home,” said Mr Longley.
Mr Longley receives his honour at a time when budget cuts are leading to severe reductions in arts funding. He used the occasion to speak of the benefits of the arts.
"I have lived in Belfast for most of my life and brought up my children here. For 20-years I worked for the Arts Council and I remain convinced that the arts - especially in troubled times - must be at the heart of civic life. Without the beautiful things our society will die."
Higgins tribute
Mr Higgins referred to how the poet Theo Dorgan, in reviewing Mr Longley's collection A Hundred Doors, said the poet was a man who paid attention to the small things but from time to time looked "history square in the face".
"Indeed, Longley has looked history square in the face, and we are, all of us on the island of Ireland, the better for it," Mr Higgins said.
“There can be no doubt, the Belfast Agreement was a formidable and a considerable achievement on the part of all who laboured to bring it into being. What is perhaps insufficiently noticed is that the political process, which was in the end remarkable for its sophistication and skill, had deep roots in civic society, and especially in the arts.
“The fact is, with Michael Longley so often in the vanguard, across the island of Ireland, even in the darkest days, poets and painters, musicians, composers, filmmakers and other artists kept up an unbroken conversation, a common commitment to the humane and the decent, a common belief in the constructive and salvific power of the imagination as a human good.
“Michael Longley, in his work as an arts administrator, in his life as a poet and in his life as a man, has worked without cease to give space and actuality to that moral imperative: that we must live together with forbearance, with understanding, with compassion and insight, above all else, perhaps, with hope.”
Mr Higgins said the “great city of Belfast” had conferred this honour on a “great poet” and “on a great and noble spirit”.
Lord Mayor of Belfast Nichola Mallon said Belfast was honouring one of its "most famous yet humble sons" who has "created and bestowed upon Belfast and the world a legacy for generations to enjoy".
