Seamus Heaney, Nobelist Poet, Dead at 74

Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, has died at age 74 following a recent illness. A former teacher who lived in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, Heaney was widely considered the best Irish poet since WB Yeats, the BBC notes; the Irish Times calls him "the most significant Irish poet of his generation." Ireland and Northern Ireland are paying tribute to Heaney, with figures from government leaders to athletes hailing his work.

"Seamus Heaney was the voice of this community, a man of the people who knew his community well and reflected the history and cultural richness of that community," said politician Patsy McGlone. "Anywhere I have ever travelled in the world ... you mention poetry and literature and the name of Seamus Heaney comes up immediately," added Ireland's arts minister Jimmy Deenihan, per the BBC. Indeed, Heaney was a favorite of Bill Clinton, who called his poetry a gift "to the world and a gift to me in difficult times," joking that his dog was named after the poet. (More Seamus Heaney stories.)