Seamus Heaney in 1986 at a turf bog in Bellaghy wearing his father’s coat, hat and walking stick.

1893    William Butler Yeats publishes The Celtic Twilight, a collection of lore and reminiscences from the west of Ireland: the book lends its name to the Irish literary revival championed by Yeats.

1904    Yeats and Lady Gregory cofound the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Yeats’ play Cathleen ni Houlihan is the first one performed at the theatre.

1907    John Millington Synge’s play The Playboy of the Western World premieres at the Abbey Theatre

1916    James Joyce publishes A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

1920    Yeats publishes the poem “The Second Coming”.

1922    James Joyce publishes Ulysses.

1924    David Corkery publishes The Hidden Ireland, the study of the poetry of 18^th century Irish poets in Gaelic and calls for the dawn of a new national literature in the Irish language, wholly emancipated from English influence.

1926    Sean O’Casey’s play The Plough and the Stars premieres at the Abbey Theatre.

1939    On 28 January, William Butler Yeats dies. On 13 April, Seamus Justin Heaney is born in Mossbawn, in the village of Tamniaran, County Derry, the son of Patrick Heaney and Margaret Kathleen Heaney, née McCann.

1951    Heaney wins a scholarship to go to St Columb’s College in Derry, which he attends until he graduates in 1957.

1953    Heaney’s younger brother Christopher is killed, aged four, in a road accident. The Heaneys move to another farm in the village of Bellaghy, just a few miles away.

1957    Heaney starts studying English Language and Literature at Queen’s University Belfast; he graduates in 1961 with a First-Class Honors degree.

1960    Ted Hughes publishes Lupercal.

1961    Heaney studies for a teacher certification at St Joseph’s College of Education in Belfast, and begins teaching at St Thomas’ Intermediate School in Ballymurphy, west of Belfast. The same year, Louis McNeice publishes his Collected Poems.

1962    Thomas Kinsella and John Montague edit the Dolmen Miscellany of Irish Writing, a collection of writings, notably poems, by the new generation of Irish writers. Kinsella also publishes Downstream the same year. In November, Heaney publishes his first poem, entitled “Tractors,” in The Belfast Telegraph.

1963    Austin Clarke publishes Flight to Africa. The same year, Philip Hobsbaum is hired as an English lecturer at Queen’s University and he creates the Belfast Group, a poets’ workshop; Heaney becomes a member and assumes leadership of the Group after Hobsbaum leaves for Glasgow in 1965, until 1970.

1965    Heaney marries Marie Devlin, a schoolteacher and a writer. They have three children: Michael, born in 1966, Christopher, born in 1968, and Catherine Ann was born in 1973. In November, Heaney publishes a first slim collection of poems, entitled Eleven Poems, for the Belfast Festival. The same year, John Montague publishes The Rough Field and Patrick Kavanagh publishes his Collected Poems. The Danish archaeologist P.V. Glob also publishes The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved, translated in English in 1969.

1966    In May, Heaney publishes his first full-length collection of poems, entitled Death of a Naturalist.

1968    On October 5, the Civil Rights march in Derry and police violence that ensues mark the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

1969    Heaney publishes his second collection of poems, entitled Door into the Dark.

1970    Heaney is hired for one year as a visiting professor in English at the University of California, Berkeley. He returns to Belfast in September 1971.

1972    In August, Heaney resigns from his position as lecturer at Queen’s University, and moves with his family to a cottage in Glanmore, County Wicklow, in the Republic of Ireland, about 20 miles away from Dublin. He begins writing on a full-time basis. The same year, he publishes his third collection of poems, entitled Wintering Out.

1973    In October, Heaney organizes a trip to Denmark to see the “bog bodies” at the museum in Silkeborg.

1975    In June, Heaney publishes his fourth collection of poems, entitled North.

1976    Heaney is appointed Head of English at Carysfort College, a teachers’ training college, in Dublin; he retains the position until 1981. In November the same year, Heaney moves with his family to the Dublin suburb of Sandymount.

1979    Heaney publishes his fifth collection of poems, entitled Field Work.

1981    Heaney is elected to the national Irish Arts Council (Aosdána). The same year, he becomes visiting professor at Harvard; in 1985, he becomes a tenured faculty member, until 1997. He also joins the board of directors of the Field Day Theatre Company, founded in Derry by Brian Friel and Stephen Rea.

1983    Heaney publishes Sweeney Astray, the first volume of his modernization of Buile Shuibhne; the second volume, Sweeney’s Flight, is published in 1992.

1984    Heaney’s mother, Margaret, dies. The same year, he publishes his sixth collection of poems, entitled Station Island.

1986    Heaney’s father, Patrick, dies.

1987    Heaney publishes his seventh collection of poems, entitled The Haw Lantern.

1988    Heaney publishes a collection of critical essays, entitled The Government of the Tongue.

1989    Heaney is elected Oxford Professor of Poetry for a five-year term.

1990    Heaney’s first play, The Cure at Troy: A version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, is produced by the Field Day Theatre Company.

1991    Heaney publishes his eighth collection of poems, entitled Seeing Things.

1995    Heaney is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.”

1996    Heaney publishes his ninth collection of poems, entitled The Spirit Level.

1997    Heaney becomes a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.

1998    Heaney is elected Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin.

1999    Heaney publishes his modernized translation of the Old English poem Beowulf.

2001    Heaney publishes his tenth collection of poems, entitled Electric Light.

2004    Heaney’s second play, The Burial at Thebes: A version of Sophocles’ Antigone, premieres, at the Abbey Theatre, in Dublin, to mark the centenary of the theatre. It is later adapted as an opera, which premieres at the Globe Theatre in London in 2008, with music by Dominique Le Gendre, a Caribbean female composer.

2006    Heaney has a stroke, which leaves him partly incapacitated in his later years. The same year, he publishes his eleventh collection of poems, entitled District and Circle.

2010    Heaney publishes his twelfth and final collection of poems, entitled Human Chain.

2013    On 30 August, Heaney dies of illness and old age in Dublin, and he is buried on 2 September at St. Mary’s Church, Bellaghy.

2016    A new translation of Book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid by Heaney is published posthumously.