Seamus Heaney Literary Papers

Identity Statement

Title	Seamus Heaney Literary Papers
Archive Reference	IE DuNL MS/ 49,493
Web Link to this Entry	https://iar.ie/archive/seamus-heaney-literary-papers
Creation Dates	1963-2010
Extent Medium	19 boxes

Content & Structure

• Scope & Content: Heaney, Seamus (1939-2013) ↴

  The Seamus Heaney Literary Papers consist for the most part of literary drafts of Heaney’s poetry, prose criticism, verse translations and drama, from his associations to the Belfast Group in the early 1960’s, the publication of his first collection ‘Death of a Naturalist’ (1966), through to his 2010 poetry collection ‘Human Chain’. Drafts of all his major poetry collections are represented, alongside his prose writings (reviews, newspaper articles and critical essays and lectures, some of which were later collected in ‘The Government of the Tongue’ and ‘The Redress of Poetry’), his translations of the work of poets Brian Merriman, Jan Kochanowski, Leos Janacek and Robert Henryson and his dramatic works ‘The Cure at Troy’ and ‘The Burial at Thebes’. Among the drafts is related documentation which sheds light on his collaborations with both English National Opera and the Abbey Theatre, his interaction with publishers in the UK, Ireland and America and his schedule of public appearances. There is, in addition, fragmentary correspondence, covering the years 1963 to 2008. The literary drafts themselves include extensive manuscript and typescript worksheets, often heavily annotated, and a number of notebooks which contain manuscript drafts, alongside occasional diary entries and his jottings in which he reflects on the origins and progress of his creative ideas.

• Appraisal Destruction ↴

  Permanent Retention

• Arrangement ↴

  I. Poetry (1963-2010). II. Prose (1970-2002). III. Verse Translations (1979-1999). IV. Drama (1990-2004). V. Other Papers. The cataloguing archivist has sought to maintain the original order in which the collection was organised by its creator. This means that where successive drafts of poetry collections were filed as distinct items by Seamus Heaney, they have been maintained as distinct items. In addition any titles on the original files, folders or envelopes in which the papers were housed have been noted in the catalogue. Many of the drafts are undated, but where a worksheet or notebook has been dated this information has been noted in the catalogue.

Conditions of Access & Use

Access Conditions	Access with a valid National Library of Ireland Readers Ticket
Conditions Governing Reproduction	Subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 2000, the papers in this collection are in copyright. It is necessary to obtain the express permission of the copyright owner before reproducing any material from this collection.
Creation Dates	1963-2010
Extent Medium	19 boxes
Material Language Script	English
Finding Aids	An item-level catalogue is available online Archive Web Link →

Allied Materials

There are no Allied Materials

Notes

NoteThe cataloguing archivist has sought to maintain the original order in which the collection was organised by its creator. This means that where successive drafts of poetry collections were filed as distinct items by Seamus Heaney, they have been maintained as distinct items. In addition any titles on the original files, folders or envelopes in which the papers were housed have been noted in the catalogue. Many of the drafts are undated, but where a worksheet or notebook has been dated this information has been noted in the catalogue.

Descriptive Control Area

Archivist Note	Deirdre Collins
Rules/Conventions	ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description. 2nd ed. Ottawa: International Council on Archives, 2000, adapted from MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data.
Date of Descriptions	41771