Seamus Heaney Exhibition

This prestigious project is located at the new Bank of Ireland Cultural Heritage Centre on College Green Dublin and was opened by President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins.

The exhibition celebrates the life and work of one of Ireland’s greatest writers. It draws on NLI’s Heaney archive, donated by the poet and his family in 2011.

The National Library of Ireland (NLI) exhibition is the first in the new centre, part of the Bank of Ireland headquarters which were originally the Irish houses of parliament, and is accessed directly from Westmoreland Street, the first time the large wooden double doors have been used in nearly 15 years.

A partnership between the NLI, the Department of Culture and Bank of Ireland, the exhibition includes original manuscripts, letters, unpublished works, diary entries, and photographs, as well as some personal items – the desk where he wrote in the family home in Sandymount, a lamp which once belonged to WB Yeats, and a portrait by Louis le Brocquy. It was curated by Prof Higgins, director of Irish studies at Emory University, and designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, with lighting design by Michael Grubb Studio.