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ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE CONFERRING OF SAOI OF AOSDÁNA

ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE CONFERRING OF SAOI OF AOSDÁNA ON SEAMUS HEANEY ON FRIDAY 1 MAY 1998

Of all the functions I have as President of Ireland – I have to say that the conferring of the Saoi – that great honour bestowed on artists by their peers in Aosdána - is one that gives me particular pleasure – and one that I have been looking forward to since coming into office last November.

Aosdána is a very special and unusual organisation - an affiliation of artists which was established by An Chomhairle Ealaíon in 1981 - to honour Irish artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland. While membership of Aosdána is an honour in itself – implying as it does that the artist has created a significant body of original and creative work - and that the value of this contribution to society is recognised by the artist's peers and by the State - within Aosdána there is a further honour - the title of Saoi - which the members of Aosdána can bestow in exceptional circumstances – and on exceptional people. Seamus Heaney is definitely a person who falls into that category. I recall that during my campaign for the Presidency last year – as I travelled the length and breadth to the country – in almost every speech that I gave – I quoted those immortal lines of Seamus Heaney – in ‘From the Canton of Expectation’ about “intelligences brightened and unmannerly as crowbars” – but his is clearly the brightest of all.

Seamus joins a unique group of accomplished artists and writers – people such as Francis Stuart, Benedict Kiely, Louis le Broquy and Tony O’Malley – the other Saoithe who have been exceptional in their chosen fields. Previous Saoithe have included Samuel Beckett, Seán Ó Faoláin, Patrick Collins, Mary Lavin. All of these names give us a very real sense of the importance and standing of the title of Saoi.

Seamus Heaney – our most recent Nobel laureate – joining with Yeats, Shaw and Beckett as Irish recipients of that great honour - is a most important figure in the history of Irish literature. Born in Derry in 1939 – as Europe was embarking on a period of turmoil and conflict that was to reverberate to this day – Seamus grew up in an era that was emerging from that conflict – an era that saw profound changes in rural and urban life – as the pace of economic development impacted on the lives and livelihoods of a new generation – and as greater access to education was to open up new horizons and opportunities to a race hungry for success.

Seamus’s childhood on a farm in County Derry – was in a world steeped in the rural tradition of farming – and a world from which he - like so many others of his generation – was to emerge through the liberation of education - to a new post-war order of economic rejuvenation and globalisation. The confusion and frustration of the divided society into which he was born – and his emergence from that society – through his schooling and his career as an educator and a writer - is plotted throughout the course of his works. His great ability to capture the episodes in his life – those fleeting occasions of joy - and the times of sorrow and sadness – and to do so with his renowned economy of word and wit – making sense and meaning out of the sometimes incomprehensible - make him a truly great master of the written word.

Since Seamus began to write in 1962 – and those days when he was connected with a group of writers in Belfast – he has published many collections and anthologies – from “Death of a Naturalist” in 1966 – to “The Spirit Level” in 1996 – and, most recently “The School Bag” which he has edited with Ted Hughes. His writings have brought him much recognition – with awards like the Somerset Maugham Award in 1968 – the Denis Devlin Award in 1973 – the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize in 1975 – the American Irish Foundation Literary Award in 1973 – the WH Smith Annual Award in 1976 – the Whitbread Award in 1987 – and of course, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. Many people can tell where they were when John F. Kennedy died – I can’t – but I can remember being in a car en route between Queens main building - Seamus’s Alma Mater – and my own office up the road. I stopped the car and wept on hearing Seamus declared 1995 Nobel Laureate. If we are a proud Irish people today – if we are self confident – if there is a purposiveness and a spring in our step – if there is a cultural renaissance at the heart of today’s Ireland – Seamus Heaney it was who placed the seed.

Writing is almost always a lonely and difficult profession – as another great Irish poet – Máirtín O’Direáin wrote, “uaigneach an file thar gach duine”. It is a profession that requires great strength of spirit and body - and a remarkable sense of discipline. It is even more difficult as a figure of world renown – to create the lonely place – and secure that special space in your life – in which to weave your words. But Seamus has managed to do that – a humble man who never sought the limelight – but who brought the light to so many people.

It is appropriate that his rich contribution to the world of letters is being recognised by his peers in Aosdána by his election as a Saoi. It now gives me great pleasure to confer the Torc – which is the symbol of the honour of Saoi, on Seamus Heaney.