The Earth's Story | Heaney and the Element of Earth

Sink into the deep world of Seamus Heaney, where the ground underfoot is rich with memory, labour, and ancestral belonging. This tour delves into the element of earth as Heaney knew it: a realm of buried histories, unearthed stories, and the steadying presence of the rural landscape that shaped him. We will follow his journey downward—into bogs that preserve the past, fields worked by generations, and the “mythological Ireland” that rooted his imagination. Along the way, we will see how earth becomes a constant companion in Heaney’s poetry: first as a personal inheritance, then as a metaphor for the unease and violence of the Troubles, and finally as a site of ecological reflection and lament. Join us as we uncover how soil, turf, and stone become vessels of identity, witness, and remembrance.