Seamus Heaney was born on April thirteenth, 1939 in Castledawson, County Derry, Northern Ireland as the oldest of what would turn out to be nine children. Seamus’ father Patrick owned a farm of around 50 acres in County Derry but his real passion was dealing cattle, which derived from his uncles who cared for Patrick after both his parents died. Seamus’ mother came from the McCann family who was heavily involved in mill and linen work. Seamus often linked his talent for writing poetry to his father’s rarely heard voice and his mother’s constant readiness to speak out. His mixed upbringing of rural Ireland and modern Ireland also helped Seamus gain a deeper understanding of the world.

Seamus was brought up as a typical country boy on the farm (which was named Mossbawn), a mile away from where the Americans were stationed in preparation for the Normandy invasion in 1944. Although the Heaney’s moved away from Mossbawn in 1953, Seamus wrote much of his poetry about his rural hometown.

At the young age of twelve, Seamus was awarded a scholarship to the catholic boarding school known as St. Columb’s, which was in the town of Derry, and forty miles away from his home in County Derry. Seamus stated that he was “moving from the earth of farm labor to the heaven of education”; his positive attitude allowed him to become all the more open to new information and develop his talent for poetry.

After his initial move from Mossbawn, Seamus continued to move to Belfast in 1957 and finally to the Irish Republic in 1972. He also travels annually to America to teach students.

Seamus’ poem became known in the 1960’s while he was a part of group of poets often referred to as a “Northern School” from Ireland. In the 1970’s, Seamus’ poems began to take on a much darker tone and this had been linked to the Irish society’s division over religion and politics. He also became very serious about his profession, asking himself such questions as what exactly was the purpose of poetry within the world, seeing as it is a way to express creative freedom as an artist and also to express a sense of social responsibility felt by the poet as citizen.

Seamus was also involved with a theatre company called Field Day which was founded in 1980 by a playwright and actor. There was some concern with this involvement as it sparked a huge cultural debate within Ireland in the 1980’s and the 1990’s. While with Field Day, Seamus also worked alongside some of his former colleagues within the poetry group of the 1960’s. He remained apart of Field Day for a decade and a half.

While Seamus was beginning his career as a poet, he also happened to meet the woman that would eventually marry him and give birth to his three children. Marie Devlin also came from a large Irish family and was a poet. Much of Seamus’ works revolved around his love.

From 1966 to 1972, Seamus was a lecturer at Queen’s University but was motivated to resign with a newly found urge to challenge himself and a new range of writing abilities so he could work as a full time poet and free-lance writer. Firstly the Heaneys set up in a cottage in County Wicklow but moved a few years later to Dublin and Seamus returned to lecturing at Carysfort College, where he was Head of the English Department until 1982. This then lead to his current deal with Harvard University which consists of one semesters work and eight-months at home. In 1984, Seamus as honored as one of the university’s most distinguished professors; Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory. In 1989 he was selected for a five-year span to be Professor of Poetry at Oxford University which required him to deliver three public lectures a year and does not require him to live in Oxford.

Throughout his vast career, Seamus Heaney was always devoted to the promotion of educational and artistic foundations. While lecturing at Queens, Seamus was an active member of a publication which printed pamphlets of poetry written by the younger generation and took over the influential poetry workshop which had originally been developed by English poet, Philip Hobsbaum. He served as a member of The Arts Council in the Republic of Ireland between 1973 and 1978, and has been a judge and lecturer for an incalculable amount of poetry competitions and literary conferences. Seamus developed a special bond with the W.B. Yeats International Summer School in Sligo, Ireland as well as being the recipient of numerous honorary degrees. He is a member of Aosdana the Irish Academy of Artists and Writers and a foreign member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1995, Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature and in 1995 he was made a Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2006, after suffering a mild stroke, he was also awarded the T.S Eliot Prize. In 2007, Seamus’ translation of the 10-century old Beowulf allowed the ancient manuscript to become a movie.