Poems of the Troubles

The Irish poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders.' He devoted a lifetime to the art of poetry and won numerous poetry prizes. In 1968, violence erupted in Northern Ireland, the beginning of 30 years of the Troubles. In the third episode of this series of The Essay, first broadcast in 2024, he talked about writing poems that remembered some of those who were victims of the the violence and his most famous poem, Ceasefire, which looks to Homer's great epic poem The Iliad as it reflects on the cost of peace. As well as Ceasefire, he reads his poems The Troubles, The Ice-cream Man, and All of these People from the collection Ash Keys: New Selected Poems (Cape Poetry), published to mark his 85th birthday on 27th July 2024. Presenter: Olivia O'Leary Producer: Claire Cunningham Executive Producer: Regan Hutchins Michael Longley's Life of Poetry is a Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3.

You can listen to Poems of the Troubles online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Poems of the Troubles is an episode from The Essay by BBC.

This episode is 13:29 long.

This episode was published on Feb 13, 2025.

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