Introduction

Summary

The Introduction begins with a fax which Seamus Heaney sent to Professor Eamon Duffy (Cambridge University) in 2001. The fax was a response to Duffy’s book The Voices of Morebath, in which he tells the story of the desacralising of a small Catholic community during the English Reformation. Heaney’s response to the book draws parallels between the medieval world of Morebath and the world of Mossbawn, where he grew up and which was foundational to his experience of Catholicism and his growth as a poet. I draw attention, in particular, to the centrality of Marian devotion for the parishioners of Morebath and for Heaney as a child. What Heaney’s fax shows is the emotional purchase which Catholicism continued to exert upon him long after he had moved away from adherence to religious orthodoxy or practice. By placing Heaney’s engagement with Catholicism in a broader historical context than has been the case up until now, I show how it operates in ways other than social and political, concluding that Catholicism remains foundational to Heaney’s work at the level of what I call a felt sense.