STORM ON THE ISLAND

Storm on the Island - Context

Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013)

Seamus Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume.

Ireland has been caught up in conflict for many centuries. Invaded by the Vikings and then the Normans it was then ruled by Britain until the war of Independence in 1921.

Since then the North of Ireland has remained part of the United Kingdom while the rest of Ireland has been an independent state. This has created further conflict and civil war, known as the Troubles. (Especially from 1968-1998)

Heaney's poetry is often about the countryside, recalling his childhood in Northern Ireland. This poem describes the experience of being on an island during a storm. However, on another level it could be an extended metaphor for the troubles in Northern Ireland.

Storm on the Island - Analysis

We are prepared: we build our houses squat

The poem opens with the first person plural pronoun showing that the islanders work as one against the elements. Suggestion that they have experienced extreme weather before.

Spits like a tame cat turned savage.

The simile described the suddenness of the transformation of the calm sea into a destructive force and includes onomatopoeia.

Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.

The final line is a paradox in that the islanders seems to dear nothing, bit of course it s is that the wind is invisible, until its effects are seen. The nothingnesss might connote death.