I have never been to this part of the country before, but as I travel through, it seems familiar. I guess this is because the poetry of Seamus Heaney is so deeply rooted in the landscape of rural Derry, that I feel as if I know the area already.

Bellaghy is a small village about five miles north west of Lough Neagh. Nestled in the countryside, it is where the late Seamus Heaney grew up. The main street is pretty and dotted with local businesses. Towards the end of the street is a building, situated a little higher above the rest. It is not overly extravagant, but like the man it is dedicated to, it takes something that appears quite ordinary and makes it extraordinary.

Seamus Heaney HomePlace has been open for nearly a year now. It is a purpose-built arts and literary centre developed by Mid Ulster District Council to celebrate the work of Seamus Heaney.

Conway Stewart pen

At the beginning of the exhibition is a Conway Stewart pen, symbolic of Heaney’s literary journey. The pen is a theme that runs throughout HomePlace. Heaney’s parents, Patrick and Margaret, bought him a Conway Stewart when he got a scholarship to go to boarding school. It was the beginning of his journey to becoming one of Ireland’s most famous poets.

I meet friends Jenny and Marilyn perusing inside. Jenny is from Co Down and this is her second time visiting HomePlace. She loves the centre and says there is so much in it: you can go again and again, and keep getting something out of it.

Marilyn is visiting Ireland from Edmonton in Canada. She worked as a teacher with Seamus’s brother, Patrick, in Canada and explains that going to HomePlace was a must for her. The women take their time going through the exhibition, dissecting everything and analysing it all between them.

Ordinary and extraordinary

The first section of the exhibition is ‘people and place’. Various figures from the Nobel Prize winner’s life feature around the room. They are family members, friends, neighbours and even the dog. As I read The Forge, a voice is played aloud in the room: “Seamus Heaney can take the most ordinary aspect of everyday life and make it into a masterpiece.”

I immediately think this describes him perfectly and after some investigation, I find out the voice is Annie O’Lone, a pupil of St Mary’s Grammar School. There is a whole host of tributes from both famous and ordinary people on an interactive screen. I think it is fitting that this apt description is voiced by a normal schoolgirl.

Family and friends

Seamus’s bother, Hugh Heaney, is quoted at HomePlace as saying: “Seamus’s feet never left the ground and you could nearly say he never left Bellaghy.”

Speaking with Peter Fallon, Heaney’s publisher and close friend for over 40 years, he concurs with Hugh. He says that Heaney’s home in Derry had an immense impact on his work throughout his whole life.

“I think it was an enormous and persistent influence that never went away. In some ways, Seamus never left the home place and there were various leavings. Something was so solidly formed in Seamus in his boyhood that he couldn’t shake it off.”

The land

Front and centre on the wall in the reception of HomePlace is a quote from Heaney’s poem Digging:

“Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping

sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly

ground:

My father, digging.”

The poem is iconic and one that shows the huge influence Heaney’s agricultural background had on his poetry. Peter, a sheep farmer from Meath, explains that although Heaney may not have had a hugely active role in farming, agriculture did play a massive role in shaping his poetry.

“In truth, Seamus probably did very little farming himself. He followed his father around and he observed things. He probably did very little, but he knew it and he knew it from a distance.

“What I would say is, in some way, farming, agriculture, that landscape, was part of the background of his life, but it became the foreground of his poetry.”

“But I have no spade to follow men

like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.”

A tribute

I leave HomePlace and travel a short distance down the street, to the church where Heaney is buried. Like the man and his poetry, the grave is not ostentatious. It is plain, but poignant, tucked away under a tree.

In my notepad, I jot down the writing on Heaney’s grave:

“Seamus Heaney 1939-2013

Walk on air against your better

judgement.”

I turn to walk away, but notice from the corner of my eye a single pen laid on the grave, not a Conway Stewart, but a fountain all the same. I leave my own pen with it. My own tribute to Heaney. After all, he is the man who made the ordinary, extraordinary. CL

www.seamusheaneyhome.com