First Principles: Editing Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney remains one of Ireland's most beloved poets and public figures. The publication of three landmark books by Faber -The Translations of Seamus Heaney (2022), The Letters of Seamus Heaney (2023), and The Poems of Seamus Heaney (2025) - has broadened our understanding of his life, work, and practice, and brought previously unpublished materials to light.

First Principles: Editing Seamus Heaney brings together the editors of these books for the first time. In a series of special conversations with fellow writers, critics, and experts, they will explore their processes of collecting and curating Heaney's poetry, translations, and literary correspondence, and his long life in publishing.

Taking place in the heart of Dublin, his home for more than 40 years, this event will also celebrate Heaney’s many connections with Trinity College, and it draws on the remarkable archive he donated to the National Library of Ireland in 2011. And, sixty years on the from his unforgettable debut Death of a Naturalist (1966), it reflects on two other important anniversaries in 2026: thirty years since the publication of his post-ceasefire, post-Nobel volume The Spirit Level in 1996, and twenty since the publication of his penultimate collection of poems District and Circle (2006).

Hosted by the School of English at Trinity in collaboration with the National Library of Ireland's Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again exhibition, First Principles: Editing Seamus Heaney promises new ways of looking at the enduring work of one of the most celebrated poets of the modern era.

The day will conclude with a reading from Vona Groarke, Ireland Chair of Poetry, introduced by Chris Morash, Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing at TCD, in the Rotunda at the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre on Westmoreland Street.

On Friday 6 November, the NLI's Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again exhibition will host two public seminars as part of First Principles, District & Circle at 20', with Dr Stephen O'Neill (TCD) and Dr Rosie Lavan (TCD), and ', with Marco Sonzogni and Matthew Hollis. These events are free and open to all: .

First Principles: Editing Seamus Heaney has been generously supported by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, the Dean of Research and Trinity Research, and the Faculty of Arts Humanities, and Social Sciences at TCD.

Info: The Poems of Seamus Heaney: co-editor Bernard O’Donoghue in conversation with Professor Margaret Kelleher (UCD), introduced and chaired by Professor Andrew Murphy (TCD)

Info: Editor Professor Marco Sonzogni (Victoria University of Wellington) in conversation with Professor Corinna Salvadori Lonergan (TCD), introduced and chaired by Professor Michael Cronin (TCD)

Info: Editor Christopher Reid in conversation with Belinda McKeon (Maynooth University), introduced and chaired by Professor Eve Patten (TCD)

Info: Matthew Hollis, co-editor of The Poems of Seamus Heaney, in conversation with Catherine Heaney, introduced and chaired by Dr Tom Walker (TCD)

Event venue & nearby stays

Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, D02 DK07, Ireland

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