A gift outright

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Since they left Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1972, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney and his wife, Marie, a painter, have lived and worked in a cottage near Glanmore in the Wicklow Hills south of Dublin. On Saturday night, the couple returned the favor of local generosity by donating manuscripts and paintings to a local auction intended to raise money to convert an abandoned police station into an arts center for the nearby village of Ashford.

The poet donated eight items in all, but the evening’s star attraction was a lot consisting of three handwritten working drafts and a holograph copy of Heaney’s ‘Glanmore Sonnet VII,’ which he wrote shortly after moving into the area. Irish manuscript collector Liam O’Leary beat out an unidentified telephone bidder from Belfast and purchased the drafts for just under $37,000.

One of the event’s organizers, Noel Keyes, told the Irish Times that Heaney ‘has a great sense of community about him. There are few others of his type who would donate documents as important as this. It’s very generous.’

— Tim Rutten 4/30/07