Sweeney Astray

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O'Brien, Eugene, Seamus Heaney: Creating Ireland of the Mind, Liffey Press (Dublin, Ireland), 2003. Times Literary Supplement, June 9, 1966; July 17, 1969; December 15, 1972; August 1, 1975; February 8, 1980; October 31, 1980; November 26, 1982; October 19, 1984; June 26, 1987; July 1-7, 1988; December 6, 1991; October 20, 1995, p. 9.

Ibid., p. 13, 32. Jos Smith briefly suggests that Sweeney can be read as an example of Bennett’s “crossings”. See Jos Smith, The New Nature Writing: Rethinking the Literature of Place, New York, Bloomsbury, 2017, p. 71-72. Sweeney Astray is a translation by Seamus Heaney of a medieval Irish work Buile Suibhne that has all the hallmarks of Heaney’s poetics. A long poem about Sweeney, King of the Ulsters who is cursed by the powerful cleric, Ronan, after he is wronged and almost killed by the king.Seamus Heaney, like James Joyce, translated himself out of Ireland and into the wider world. He travelled, befriended and was influenced by Derek Walcott, from St Lucia, Russian exile Joseph Brodsky and Czeslaw Milosz, from Poland. this lonely pilgrimage, Sweeney, instead of wishing for a return to court, comes to yearn for the solace of the woods. On Ailsa Craig, “[a] hard station!” (p. 53), he laments:

Joining Ó Lionáird for the performances, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra will be under the baton of David Brophy, who conducted the National Chamber Choir of Ireland, the Dublin Orchestral Players, and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, before being appointed Principal Conductor of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra (RTÉCO). Brophy conducted at the opening ceremony for the Special Olympics in 2012, and for the late Queen Elizabeth II in the National Convention Centre in 2011. Proceedings will be presented by Liz Nolan of RTÉ Lyric FM. The lunchtime concert in the NCH will be presented by Liz Nolan of RTÉ lyric fm and John Kelly will interview composer Neil Martin before the Kilkenny performance.Seamus Heaney on Mad Sweeney the king cursed by a saint and condemned to live as a bird until his death.

Translator) The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles'"Antigone," Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 2004. the other characters on that commonplace stage, he is a driven figure raving gibberish. Sweeney in his turn sees them as if he were a mad Adam driven alone through a lunatic Eden. The language of the poem reflects this gulf - between theThis volume is handsome testimony to Heaney’s lifelong service to a noble art." —David Wheatley, The Guardian Helen Vendler similarly applauded the collection when she reviewed it for The New Yorker. She writes: