When I write a poem I am moving into unknown territory and hoping to be surprised by some kind of redemptive eloquence to cast light into dark corners".

[4] Longley was educated at RBAI and subsequently read Classics at Trinity College Dublin, where he edited Icarus.

He was the Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2007 to 2010, a cross-border academic post set up in 1998, previously held by John Montague, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Paul Durcan.

[6] He was part of the Belfast Group of poets that included Seamus Heaney with whom he became close friends, Derek Mahon and Paul Muldoon.

[10] The poem adapts a famous scene from the Iliad, where King Priam begs for the body of his son back from the warrior Achilles.

Citing Northern Ireland's recent troubled past, he asked: "Who can bring peace to people who are not civilised?

[16] North American editions of Longley's work are published by Wake Forest University Press.

The Chair of the judges, Don Paterson, said: "For decades now his effortlessly lyric and fluent poetry has been wholly suffused with the qualities of humanity, humility and compassion, never shying away from the moral complexity that comes from seeing both sides of an argument.

[27] In autumn 2021, the School of English at Queen's University opened the Longley Room to honour the poet and his wife.