Belfast Poet Padraic Fiacc Dies

Tributes have been paid to Belfast poet Padraic Fiacc, who has died at the age of 94.

The celebrated writer's death comes only 10 days after Irish President Michael D Higgins paid a private visit to see him and thank him for his work.

SDLP Councillor Donal Lyons expressed his sadness at the death of the acclaimed poet, who was best known and often rebuked for his writing that captured the brutality of the Troubles.

"While he had been ill for some time he was one of those great poets who unashamedly offered a unique and dissenting voice in Irish poetry and his passing is a terrible loss," the Belfast City Councillor said.

"I was honoured to participate in a reading of his work in the Linenhall Library last year as part of a worthy celebration of his long, varied and fascinating life. His poetry charts the different aspects of his life as he shifts between styles and form to reflect his world as it is changing around him.

"Fiacc himself said that his life was lived in fragments, separated by emigration, identity and conflict and it's in his poems from the early years of the Troubles that this fragmentation is most apparent. The diasporan blend of his earlier years is replaced by sharp edged snatches of a uniquely Belfast voice, sometimes conflicting, often unsettling but always unflinching in its portrayal of the brutality of conflict. Though he called these poems his 'ruined pages', the depth of his empathy for all the victims of the conflict is clear."



(JG/MH)