Such was Seamus Heaney's influence on the arts in this country and abroad, a host of musicians have been speaking about exactly how influential the Nobel Laureate was on their careers and the advancement of their creative voice.
Speaking at Heaney's funeral today in Dublin, Bono described Heaney as "great, great poet", adding that his work "changed my life".
Paul Simon, who was a personal friend of Heaney's, wrote an editorial for the New York Times upon the news of Heaney's passing.
"Popular culture likes to house songwriters and poets under the same roof, but we are not the close family that some imagine", he wrote. "Poets are distant cousins at most, and labour under a distinctly different set of rules. Songwriters have melody, instrumentation and rhythm to colour their work and give it power; poets accomplish it all with words."
"There are few poets I would rank as his equal", Simon concluded by saying.
Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody blogged that Heaney was an artist who "touched people on a level that bends deeper into [their] souls" and that he was a person of "profound light, love and kindness."
