'Death of a Naturalist', Sixty Years On | An Anniversary Lecture from Dr Rosie Lavan
"Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear"
Join us at Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again Saturday 24th May at 2pm for a fascinating talk from Dr Rosie Lavan of Trinity College Dublin on Seamus Heaney’s first and most beloved collection, Death of a Naturalist, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of its publication.
Death of a Naturalist gained fame for Heaney as he movingly describes his journey from innocence to experience and from his rural upbringings in Co. Derry to the urban world of Belfast. Dr Lavan will discuss the book’s journey towards publication, looking at how some of Heaney’s most cherished poems – including ‘Digging’, ‘Twice Shy’ and ‘Death of a Naturalist’ – made their first appearances in British magazines including the New Statesman and Vogue, where they can be found in some intriguing contexts. To do so, she will draw on some of the most special items in our collection, such as the letter from Faber & Faber telling Heaney that Death of a Naturalist had been accepted for publication.
Dr. Lavan is an associate professor in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin, where she teaches and researches modern Irish and British literature and culture.
She is the author of Seamus Heaney and Society (Oxford University Press, 2020), and co-editor, with Bernard O’Donoghue and Matthew Hollis, of The Poems of Seamus Heaney, published by Faber in 2025.
If our team can be of any assistance, please contact us at heaneyexhibition@nli.ie
