Seamus Heaney Centre

The Seamus Heaney Centre is located at Queen's University Belfast, and named after the late Seamus Heaney, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Heaney graduated from Queens in 1961 with a First Class Honours in English language and literature.

It was officially opened in February 2004 as ‘The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry’, and its founding director was the poet and Queen's graduate Ciaran Carson. Carson retired as director in 2014. He was replaced by Prof. Fran Brearton from 2014-17, with assistant director Prof. Sinead Morrissey 2015-16. Fran Brearton and Sinead Morrissey brought in the funding for the Centre’s Children’s Writing Fellow and International Visiting fellows and support for the SHC first collection prize. She was succeeded by Glenn Patterson 2018-present.

On 30 April 2009, it gave Heaney a 70th birthday party involving a literary evening.

On 22 August 2023, Queen's University announced the centre, renamed in 2018 ‘The Seamus Heaney Centre’, will be relocated to 38-40 University Road, Belfast, which will receive a £4.9 million renovation. The new centre will display archived material in an exhibition area, and have an expanded poetry library, a large venue area, teaching rooms, academic offices, and scriptorium. It is set to open to the public in early 2024.

First Collection Poetry Prize
The prize is awarded to a poet whose first collection of poetry has been published in the previous year by a UK- or Ireland-based publisher. It is part of the Seamus Heaney Legacy Project funded by Atlantic Philanthropies. The winner receives £5,000 and is invited to give the Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry at New York University with travel accommodation and a $1,000 honorarium included.

Previous recipients of the Prize are:


 * 2023 - Mark Pajat for Slide (Cape Poetry)


 * 2022 - Victoria Kennefick for Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet 2021)
 * 2021 - Sumita Chakraborty for Arrow (Carcanet, 2020)
 * 2020 - Laura Scott for So Many Rooms (Carcanet, 2019)
 * 2019 - Ned Denny for Unearthly Toys (Carcanet)
 * 2018 - Richard Osmond for Useful Verses (Picador Poetry);
 * 2017 - Adam Crothers for Several Deer (Carcanet)
 * 2016 - Kate Miller for The Observances (Carcanet)
 * 2015 - Fiona Benson for Bright Travellers (Cape Poetry)
 * 2014 - Tara Bergin for This is Yarrow (Carcanet)
 * 2013 - Sarah Jackson for Pelt (Bloodaxe Books)