Speech at the Conferring of the Freedom of the City of Belfast on Michael Longley
Ulster Hall, Belfast, 23rd March 2015
Lord Mayor,
Lord Lieutenant,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The poet Michael Longley is, by any standards, a remarkable man. I need not, in this place and on this occasion, begin to list his many accomplishments in poetry, the garlands and laurels he has rightly gathered for his work over a long, productive and luminous life. The poems speak for themselves — eloquent, precise and passionate, large-hearted, intelligent and above all humane.
It is that humane quality in the life and in the…