Late Heaney: Nicholas Allen in conversation with Mark Carruthers

Late Heaney follows Seamus Heaney through the landscapes, friendships and events that shaped his last four collections, The Spirit Level, Electric Light, District and Circle, and Human Chain, all set in conversation with his work at large. Heaney's later life was a time of transformative change and achievement. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, after which he became a writer of global standing. This book grounds that experience in the history and geography of the places he wrote about, with an eye to the artists who influenced him and the people he knew. Late Heaney draws a line from the waterlands of Lough Neagh to the olive groves of Greece, inviting the reader to think about time and belonging in context of art and memory. Later, Heaney began to imagine himself as a witness at the riverbank between life and death, an image that features powerfully in his final poems. Late Heaney follows the poet there, finding light in the dark, and company among the shades.

Nicholas Allen is the Baldwin Professor in Humanities and Director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at the University of Georgia. He writes widely about Irish literature and has received many grants and awards for his work.

Mark Carruthers is one of Northern Ireland’s most respected broadcasters. He joined BBC Northern Ireland in 1989 and currently presents a string of well-established political programmes on television and radio, including the The View, Sunday Politics and Red Lines. He has been nominated for four Royal Television Society awards for his work.

Mark studied political science at Queen's University Belfast, and gained his MA in Irish politics in 1989. He received an honorary doctorate from Queen’s in 2019 for distinction in broadcasting and is currently Visiting Professor of Media at Ulster University.

Beyond politics, Mark is a passionate advocate of the arts. He served on the Board of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast for almost fourteen years – eight of them as Chairman – and was a leading figure in the successful campaign to rebuild the theatre at a cost of over £18m. He also served for many years as Chairman of Tinderbox Theatre Company. He was awarded an OBE for services to the arts in Northern Ireland in 2011.

He is co-editor, with Stephen Douds, of Stepping Stones: The Arts in Ulster 1971-2001 which was published by Blackstaff Press in 2001. Alternative Ulsters – Conversations on Identity, a collection of interviews with leading writers, actors, journalists and politicians, was published by Liberties Press in 2013. His latest book, Colin Davidson: Twelve Paintings – Conversations with Mark Carruthers, was published by Merrion Press in November 2025.

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