Seamus Heaney dead at 74

Award-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney has died at the age of 74. The acclaimed writer, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, passed away on Friday (30Aug13) after a battle with ill health.
No further details were available as WENN went to press.
Born in Northern Ireland in 1939, Heaney grew up on a farm before leaving for Belfast and taking up a career as a teacher while expanding his interest in poetry. His first published works appeared in 1962, and he released his first book, Eleven Poems, in 1965.
He went on to become one of the most revered poets of the 20th Century and also combined his writing with periods as a lecturer in the U.S.
Awarding him a Nobel Prize in 1995, the committee members praised Heaney’s “works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past”. During his career, Heaney was also handed the E. M. Forster Award, the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Golden Wreath of Poetry, and two acclaimed Whitbread Prizes.