Seamus Heaney’s Ecopoetry and Environmental Causes: From Conservation to Climate Change

Abstract

Seamus Heaney is viewed as a pre-eminent poet of nature, and is often read through the lens of ecopoetic and ecocritical theories. Yet no earlier scholarship has mentioned his support for conservation. Through research on archives, limited editions and conservation documents, this article shows that Heaney supported high-profile environmental organisations and campaigns, including the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, World Wildlife Fund, the Ulster Trust for Nature Conservation, the RSPB, and a campaign against a new road that threatened a bogland. This article challenges readings of Heaney that proposed that he merely explored a ‘connection’ to nature, and shows that he used writing to protect environments he cared about. Heaney’s modest environmental activities are not without complications. Yet when Heaney uses an early bog-poem to support a later conservation project, or when a campaign aims to save the ecology of ‘Heaney Country’, culture clearly plays a role in environmental engagement.