President Michael D Higgins has been leading tributes to Seamus Heaney who has died at the age of 74.
The Derry native, was one of Ireland’s most famous poets and playwrights, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.
Seamus Heaney was in County Clare earlier this month as guest speaker at the Merriman Summer School in Lisdoonvarna.
In a statement this lunchtime President Higgins says Mr Heaney’s contribution to the republics of letters, conscience and humanity was immense.
He also extended his deepest sympathies to Seamus’ wife Marie and their children. An Taoiseach says the death of Seamus Heaney brought "great sorrow to Ireland, to language and to literature".
Enda Kenny says Mr Heaney would be mourned all over the world, wherever poetry was celebrated.
