Poet Michael Longley touched souls with just a few words, funeral hears

Acclaimed Belfast poet Michael Longley managed to touch the souls of people with just a few words, his funeral has heard.

President of Ireland Michael D Higgins was among mourners who joined Longley’s family at Saturday’s service in All Souls Church in Belfast.

The renowned poet died in hospital at the age of 85 on January 22.

A representative of Taoiseach Micheal Martin also attended the funeral, as did SDLP leader and family friend Claire Hanna.

Longley won a number of awards, including the TS Eliot Prize, the Feltrinelli International Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Prize. He was made a CBE in 2010 and was awarded the freedom of Belfast.

Among his best-known work is the 1994 poem Ceasefire, inspired by the then-ceasefires in his native Northern Ireland and the search for peace and reconciliation.

Longley met Queen Camilla when she visited Hillsborough Castle in Co Down last year for a poetry event.

Reverend Chris Hudson from All Souls Church said Longley had managed to enter people’s consciousness.

“That is a noble place for the poet to be,” he said.

“The poet touches the soul of people. Preachers and politicians can make speeches or sermons that use thousands of words to touch our imagination, but the poet can manage with few yet go straight to the heart, such as Michael.”

President Higgins led the tributes to Longley after his death was announced last month, saying he would “be recognised as one of the greatest poets that Ireland has ever produced, and it has long been my belief that his work is of the level that would be befitting of a Nobel Prize for Literature”.

Roisin McDonough, the chief executive of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, said Longley had been a “towering figure” of Northern Ireland arts for 60 years.

She added: “He was one of our truly great poets, one of the most respected and influential of his generation, his name spoken alongside Heaney, Carson and Mahon, all of whom are sadly now no longer with us.

“We have lost a guide, a friend, an inspiration, but his poetry will last – and it will be cherished by generations to come.”

Longley is survived by his wife, Edna, and children Rebecca, Daniel and Sarah.