Seamus Heaney

THE SEAMUS HEANEY CENTRE AT QUEEN’S The n ex t c h a p te r

WELCOME Situated at the heart of Belfast’s University area, the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s is a place where writing lives. A place for new voices, established voices and internationally renowned voices. A place for learning and discovery. A place to honour the legacy of Seamus Heaney, with shared words and shared community. We invite you to join us in writing the next chapter for this special place.

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A LANDMARK BUILDING With student numbers up by 50% in five years and writing groups, events and workshops consistently oversubscribed, we are preparing to move to a new landmark building which will enable further growth. The new Centre will be housed in a beautiful Victorian listed building conveniently close to Belfast City Centre and the main university campus. It will be designed as a creative and inspiring space for teaching, writing, workshops, masterclasses, and performances for growing numbers of students, aspiring writers, and visitors. Social spaces for interaction will be coupled with nooks and booths for reading, writing, or simply thinking. In this inspiring and supportive environment people will find their voice as writers, just as Heaney did, at Queen’s.

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HEANEY ON DISPLAY The new venue will make it possible, for the first time, to exhibit the extensive untapped Heaney archive held by Queen’s. This includes a wide-ranging digital archive of his television and radio appearances and other valuable items such as rare first edition pamphlets. The exhibition will expand on the wider network of writers Heaney encountered at Queen’s, and the subsequent generations of writers who have passed, and continue to pass, through the Centre. The Centre will be a fitting tribute to Seamus Heaney’s legacy at Queen’s and his creative impact on writers and poets across the world.

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NURTURING NEW VOICES Since 2003, the Seamus Heaney Centre has delivered a programme that runs from undergraduate to PhD, student masterclasses, public events, a Poetry Summer School, and a First Collection Poetry Prize. Students are tutored by an illustrious group of writers including: • Poet and novelist Nick Laird, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award • Forward Prize winning poets Leontia Flynn and Stephen Sexton • Screenwriter and Oscar-nominated director Tim Loane • Aislinn Clarke, screenwriter, director and Academy Gold Fellowship awardee • Gail McConnell, winner of the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize. Seamus Heaney Centre Fellows have included Wendy Erskine, Oliver Jeffers, Marian Keyes, Lisa McGee, Denise Riley, Enda Walsh and TimWheeler. For 2022-23, the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellows are Roddy Doyle, Conor Mitchell and Kae Tempest, with Jane Hirshfield appointed Seamus Heaney International Visiting Poetry Fellow at Queen’s.

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INTERNATIONAL CHAIR OF CREATIVE WRITING

Our plans also include the appointment of the Seamus Heaney International Visiting Chair of Creative Writing. Commencing in 2023/24, this will be an invitation to a writer of global renown to join the Centre’s team of world-class writers, poets and critics six months a year, for up to two years. The Visiting Chair will bring expertise, creativity and new perspectives to the Centre’s expanding degree programmes, events, outreach activities and collaborations. They will work with writers at all stages to inspire and educate, fully engaging with the literary life of Belfast and beyond.

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REACHING OUT TO THE WORLD Recognising Seamus Heaney as a global literary force, we work internationally through collaborations with Villanova University in Pennsylvania, and through the annual appointment of two Fulbright US Scholars. The Seamus Heaney Poetry Summer School welcomes students from across the world each year, and a new Poetry in Translation project in partnership with Haus für Poesie in Berlin began in 2022. We also work closely with the Heaney family as part of the wider Heaney community that includes the Estate of Seamus Heaney, the Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy, and the National Library of Ireland.

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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Giving people the tools to create, communities the space to gather, and writing networks the opportunity to connect is central to our vision. With the new Centre and the Visiting Chair, we will deliver a rich programme of outreach and engagement, drawing as many people as possible into a world of creativity, literature and learning. We will also work with education and community partners to reach across the city into some of Northern Ireland’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

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CELEBRATING A LITERARY GREAT Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) was one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. A global literary figure and the university’s most internationally renowned graduate, his work embraced translation, playwriting and prose, as well as poetry, criticism and practice. He began writing while studying English Language and Literature at Queen’s and was a founding member of the ‘Belfast Group’, set up in 1963 by Cambridge poet and critic Philip Hobsbaum. Among the other writers and critics who attended the group, and later came to prominence, were Edna Longley, Michael Longley, Bernard MacLaverty, Paul Muldoon, Stewart Parker and the Heaney Centre’s first director, Ciaran Carson. The Group played a tremendously important role in encouraging new writers and this ethos prevails in the Seamus Heaney Centre today.

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A NOTE FROM GLENN PATTERSON, DIRECTOR OF THE SEAMUS HEANEY CENTRE “Through our permanent staff, our visiting fellows, our brilliant students, through our friendships and partnerships, our collaborations and the chance encounters that all these elements inevitably give rise to, we will create a centre that looks out, that speaks out, and writes out confidently into the world. “A centre that welcomes in. Students, academics, our neighbours in the city, newcomers to the city, people just passing through. Lovers of Heaney, of poetry, of Belfast’s literary history. Seekers of the next generation, or those just after a few moments of quiet contemplation. “The new Seamus Heaney Centre will more than ever be a link between the past and the future, between the city and the university, between writing here and elsewhere. It will be a centre with Heaney at its heart. ”

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MAKING IT HAPPEN Fulfilling the vision for the Seamus Heaney Centre is a priority for Queen’s University and we are fully committed to investing in its future. With the support of the Heaney family, the Foundation Board of Queen’s University is embarking on a campaign to raise £3.9million from philanthropic sources to help unlock this vision.

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“Perhaps the final thing to be learned is this: in the realm of poetry, as in the realm of consciousness, there is no end to the possible learnings that can take place.” – Seamus Heaney

We believe creative education and widening access to cultural opportunity makes a lasting difference to people’s lives. If you do too, please join us in helping to bring this project to life.

To find out more about supporting this project, please contact: Helen Carrick Assistant Director (Philanthropy)

Queen’s University Belfast Email: h.carrick@qub.ac.uk Call: +44 (0)7580 970 600

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Th i s c e n t re h o l d s a n d s p re a d s