Renowned Irish poet and Trinity alumnus Michael Longley has died at the age of 85.
He passed away last night at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital following a short illness.
Longley, who was born in Belfast in 1932, studied classics at Trinity in the 1950s where he met his future wife Edna. During his time at Trinity, Longley became interested in poetry and served as editor of student literary magazine, Icarus.
After his graduation from Trinity, Longley published his first collection of poetry No Continuing City in 1969.
Over the course of his career Longley published 13 collections of poetry and received numerous prestigious awards including the TS Eliot Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the Griffin International Prize, the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, the Wilfred Owen Award, the PEN Pinter Prize, and the inaugural Yakamochi Medal.
Paying tribute today, President Michael D. Higgins called Longley “one of the greatest poets that Ireland has ever produced”.
“It is with the deepest sadness that I, like so many others, have learned of the death of Michael Longley. I regarded him as a peerless poet with at least three poetic lives. It is, however, the generosity of his heart, and the lovely cadence of a voice of love and friendship that I will most remember,” the President said.
“Michael Longley will be recognised as one of the greatest poets that Ireland has ever produced, and it has long been my belief that his work is of the level that would be befitting of a Nobel Prize for Literature. The range of his work was immense, be it from the heartbreak of loss to the assurance of the resilience of beauty in nature,” he added.
Longley’s final collection of poetry, The Slain Birds, was released in 2022.
In the same year he was awarded the Feltrinelli International Poetry Prize for a lifetime’s achievement. The citation read: “Longley is an extraordinary poet of landscape, particularly of the Irish west, which he observes with the delicate and passionate attention of an ecologist, and a tragic singer of Ireland and its dramatic history. But he has also addressed the seduction, conquest, and fascination of love, as well as the shock of war in all ages, the tragedy of the Holocaust and of the gulags, and the themes of loss, grief and pity.”
Michael Longley is survived by his wife Enda, their three children Rebecca, Daniel and Sarah, as well as seven grandchildren.
In his death notice, Longley’s family said he will be remembered “ for his warmth, humour, friendship, intellect and his many contributions to the arts on the island of Ireland, the UK and across the world”.
“In particular, his wonderful poems will remain with us always, providing comfort and connection to him; his words will live on, enriching our lives every day.”