NORTH by Seamus Heaney (50th Anniversary Year)
30 August - 31 August
30 August - 30 August
31 August - 31 August
Venue: The Playhouse, 5-7 Artillery St, Derry, Derry, BT48 6RG
A 50th Anniversary Production of curated reading recitals across two days "Four community-led recitals of Seamus Heaney's NORTH in words and music" 30 poems • 20+ readers • 5 instrumentalists • 4 venues • 2 days The 30 poems of Seamus Heaney's once contentious but now iconic 4th poetry collection, North, will be read in the natural voices of individual citizens from the Derry~Londonderry community's two cultural traditions. Each local voice will be chosen through an experiential connection to one of the poems, for example Sunlight / an older baker woman, Funeral Rites / an undertaker, Hercules and Antaeus / a body builder.
NORTH by Seamus Heaney (50th Anniversary Year)
A 50th Anniversary Production of curated reading recitals across two days
"Four community-led recitals of Seamus Heaney's NORTH in words and music"
30 poems • 20+ readers • 5 instrumentalists • 4 venues • 2 days
The 30 poems of Seamus Heaney's once contentious but now iconic 4th poetry collection, North, will be read in the natural voices of individual citizens from the Derry~Londonderry community's two cultural traditions. Each local voice will be chosen through an experiential connection to one of the poems, for example Sunlight / an older baker woman, Funeral Rites / an undertaker, Hercules and Antaeus / a body builder.
The readings will be interspersed with a quintet of instrumental sounds and snatches of melody from a harp, a wooden flute, a Lambeg drum, a bodhran and a fiddle. Four evocative venues have been chosen as the locations for each section of poems to be read in chronological order across the two days.
Part of the FrielDays – A Homecoming 2025-2029 - Make it a weekend celebration of Friel & Heaney by combining your day with the 50th Anniversary of Friel's Volunteers at Ebrington Keep.
Keep an eye on this page for multi-buy tickets and special offers for the weekend.
SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2025
11:00am - First Derry Presbyterian Church North Part 1:
Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication for Mary Heaney • Sunlight • The Seed Cutters • Antaeus • Belderg • Funeral Rites • North • Viking Dublin: Trial Pieces • The Digging Skeleton • Bone Dreams • Come to the Bower
2:00pm - The Gasyard, Bogside North Part 1 continued:
Bog Queen • The Grauballe Man • Punishment • Strange Fruit • Kinship • Ocean's Love to Ireland • Aisling • Act of Union • The Betrothal of Cavehill • Hercules and Antaeus
SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 2025
11:00am - Venue TBC, Derry City Centre North Part 2:
The Unacknowledged Legislator's Dream • Whatever You Say Say Nothing • Freedman
2:00pm - Lumen Christi College North Part 2 continued:
Singing School: The Ministry of Fear • A Constable Calls • Orange Drums, Tyrone, 1966 • Summer 1969 • Fosterage • Exposure
Production Details
Mise En Scène: DoranBrowne
Producer: Margaret Gallagher
Cast: Citizens of Derry~Londonderry and Counties Derry & Donegal
Co-production: The Playhouse, Derry
Part of: Tyrone~Derry, Here We Come! • FrielDays – A Homecoming 2025-2029
Tickets
£10 for each of the four individual North recitals