RIP Ciaran Carson (1948-2019)

Irish poet Ciaran Carson has died at the age of 70, reports Freya McClements for the Irish Times. During his life Carson was honored with numerous awards, including the TS Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize for Poetry, and the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize, among others. More on Carson's life and achievements:

A member of Aosdána and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was one of the “Belfast Group” of poets in the 1960s which included Séamus Heaney, Michael Longley and Paul Muldoon.

His publisher Peter Fallon said Mr Carson’s work was “heroic” and it was “not an exaggeration to compare his mapping of Belfast with Joyce’s of Dublin.”

Mr Carson’s son Gerard said on social media that his father had “passed away peacefully” early on Sunday morning “surrounded by his loving family.”

“Such an amazing person who I learned so much from and will miss very dearly,” he said.

Born in Belfast in 1948, Mr Carson published 14 collections of poems, including The Irish For No, Belfast Confetti and The Twelfth of Never.

His prose writings included The Star Factory, a memoir of Belfast, Shamrock Tea (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize) and a translation of The Táin.

His most recent collection of poetry, Still Life, was due to be published this month.

Read on at the Irish Times.