Nobel Laureate and Irish poet Seams Heaney was buried in Bellaghy in the county of Londonderry on Monday.
The 74-year-old poet passed away last Friday.
After a funeral service held at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Dublin county, the poet was laid to rest with famous mourners in attendance, BBC News reports. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, President Michael D. Higgins, Bono and others were seen at the funeral service.
According to the Associated Press, Irish uilleann piper Liam O’Flynn played before Heaney’s family and friends.
Heaney’s son, Michael, revealed at the service that the poet sent a text message in Latin just before his death that said, “’Noli timere.’ Don’t be afraid.”
Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995 in literature for his writings that were inspired by rural Ireland, the cultures of Europe, his Catholic faith and the trouble in Northern Ireland.
Fellow poet Paul Muldoon gave a eulogy where he talked about how Heaney was a “big-hearted celebrity.” Muldoon also talked about Heaney’s continual praising his pacemaker, saying he “took an almost unseemly delight in announcing: Blessed are the pacemakers” after he had to have one put in after a stroke in 2006.
image: Wikimedia Commons
