“Be advised, my passport’s green / No glass of ours was ever raised / To toast The Queen.”
“Be advised, my passport’s green / No glass of ours was ever raised / To toast The Queen.”
Séamus Heaney wrote those marvellous lines in 1983, but he has changed his mind :
“• Another day of triumph for the Queen in Dublin. Who could fail to be seduced by her charm and poise these days? Certainly not Seamus Heaney, for there he was at the Dublin Castle banquet, raising a glass to toast the lady herself. There he was, feted with the top people at the top table, placed between Big Dave and Prince Philip. Not a care in the world and not a thought for the poem he published in 1983. Let us remind ourselves of An Open Letter. “Be advised, my passport’s green / No glass of ours was ever raised / To toast The Queen.” One-nil to Liz, we think.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/20/hugh-muir-diary-lars-von-trier
Sadly, Heaney has lots of company among the masters of the Leinster House Universe and their toadies :
As Raymond Deane says :
“Hugh Muir in The Guardian points out an irony that the Irish embedded media chose to miss.”
One segment of the Irish embedded media also noticed the poet’s changed mind :
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0521/1224297441669.html?via=mr
Perhaps Heaney will now be included in the ranks of (West) British Poets :
Tomás Ó Flatharta 
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