Seamus Heaney’s famous line to “walk on air against your better judgement” has been inscribed as an epitaph on his gravestone.
The quote was taken from Heaney’s acceptance speech after receiving the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature. It was included in a poem called The Gravel Walks.
Heaney passed away almost two years ago at the age of 74. He was Ireland’s best known contemporary writer, world renowned for his work. He is buried in Bellaghy, Co Derry, his birthplace which served as an inspiration for much of his early work.
In a 2008 interview Heaney was asked why he chose it. He answered: “A person from Northern Ireland is naturally cautious. You grew up vigilant because it’s a divided society. My poetry on the whole was earth hugging, but then I began to look up rather than keep down. I think it had to do with a sense that the marvellous was as permissible as the matter-of-fact in poetry.”