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" In my early teens, I acquired a kind of representative status: went on behalf of the family to wakes and funerals and so on. And I would be counted on as an adult contributor when it came to farm work - the hay in the summertime, for example. "

Seamus Heaney

Farm

Family

Early

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Small

Truth

" The Heaneys were aristocrats, in the sense that they took for granted a code of behavior that was given and unspoken. Argumentation, persuasion, speech itself, for God's sake, just seemed otiose and superfluous to them. "

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Seamus Heaney

Ground

Ireland

" I believe we are put here to improve civilisation. "

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Seamus Heaney

Beyond

I Am

" I'm not personally obsessed with death. At a certain age, the light that you live in is inhabited by the shades - it 'tis. "

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Seamus Heaney

Writer

Who

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