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The Singer's House | Introduction

Seamus Heaney’s poem, “The Singer’s House” was first published in his 1979 volume of poetry, Field Work, which was published in both England and America that year. The volume marked a departure from Heaney’s earlier poetry volumes, most of which had addressed the modern conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland— often referred to as the Troubles—in an indirect way. However, many of the poems in the new volume, which were written during a period of self-exile from Northern Ireland, demonstrated Heaney’s more concentrated attempts to define his role in the Irish conflict. For this reason, many critics singled out Field Work as the transitional point in Heaney’s poetry career.

In “The Singer’s House,” Heaney uses his poetic abilities to appeal to another artist—his singer friend, David Hammond. The poem was written after Hammond canceled a recording session, following a terrorist bombing. Heaney wanted to encourage Hammond that his voice counts, and that it was important for Hammond to inspire his fellow Irish countrymen and -women with his songs. Heaney was hoping to inspire a revival in Irish language and literature, which had been largely replaced over the centuries by the language and culture of British colonizers. A current copy of the poem can be found in Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966–1996, which was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1999. This collection also includes the lecture that Heaney gave after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.

The Singer's House Summary

Stanza One
“The Singer’s House” starts out with the reaction of the speaker, Heaney, to the reference of an outside group—the unidentified, “they.” This group has spoken of Carrickfergus, a medieval city in County Antrim, on the eastern coast of Northern Ireland. Carrickfergus is known for its rich deposit of rock salt that was mined extensively from the 1850s until the early part of this century. When Heaney was writing the poem in the 1970s, many of the salt mines in Carrickfergus had already been abandoned. However, in one of his explanatory footnotes to the poem in the 1991 reprint of Field Work, Heaney makes no mention of this, saying only that: “There are salt-mines at the town of Carrickfergus in Co. Antrim.” Instead, the reader must infer from the poem that the salt mines are mainly an item from the past.

This idea is emphasized by “the frosty echo of saltminers’ picks,” a phrase that hearkens back to a time in Ireland’s history when the salt mines were active. Heaney may be considering this echo “frosty” for a couple of reasons. As part of Northern Ireland, Carrickfergus is subject to the same winter climate as the rest of northern Europe. Also, because the echo is from the past, it is only a memory of a heritage that has grown cold. In any case, Heaney continues his reconstruction of this past, giving the sound of the saltminers’ picks a physical form in his imagination, as it becomes “chambered and glinting,” a reference to the crystalline nature of rock salt. The poet continues sketching out the image in his mind, and the sound becomes “a township built of light.” The image of light in poetry is often used to denote goodness or happiness. Collectively, this stanza invokes a nostalgic image of a mystical, happy society.

Stanza Two
In this stanza, Heaney’s pleasant memory of the saltminers is abruptly terminated, as he comes back into the present, the 1970s, when he is writing the poem during his self-imposed exile from Northern Ireland. Heaney uses the idea of salt mining as a transition between the past and the present, asking: “What do we say any more / to conjure the salt of our earth?” This sentence works on two levels. Literally, the sentence laments the loss of the salt mines in Carrickfergus. However, the subtext— or hidden meaning—of the sentence offers a lament for the increasing loss of Irish language and culture as a result of England’s colonization of Ireland. Up until this point, the use of Irish Gaelic had been preserved mainly by “the salt of our earth.” The salt of the earth is a common phrase used to indicate the working classes that help to provide an economic and cultural foundation in a society. As Heaney notes in the next two lines, “So much comes and is gone / that should be crystal and kept.” The rate of deterioration of Irish language and culture is rapid. Once again, there is a double meaning on the word, “crystal,” which invokes the image of the rock salt once again, but which also implies something valuable— Irish traditions—that should be saved.

Stanza Three
In this stanza, Heaney builds on the theme of change. The first two lines—“and amicable weathers / that bring up the grain of things”—offer a contrast to the “frosty echo” from the first stanza. Amicable, or friendly, weather usually implies sunny days, which in this case helps to raise grains. However, the words “bring up,” an odd choice for talking about the growth of crops, serve a deeper meaning. They invoke an image of bringing up, or raising, a family—the “grain” of society. But this is not a positive connotation, as the next two lines indicate: “their tang of season and store, / are all the packing we’ll get.” The way these two lines are written, it produces an image of monotony. In British-controlled Northern Ireland, where Irish language and culture have been continuously suppressed, the years go by blandly, the only “tang,” or spice, being the passing seasons—as marked by the crops that are continually grown and stored. These things “are all” that Heaney and others who are living in Northern Ireland have for “packing,” a word that is in itself very telling. Grain and other crops are usually stored in tightly packed containers... » Complete The Singer's House Summary