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Seamus HeaneyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“Orange Drums, Tyrone 1966” by Seamus Heaney (1975)
This poem amplifies just one word that occurs in “Act of Union”: “wardrum [sic].” Published in Heaney’s collection North, “Orange Drums, Tyrone 1966” is about those drums, as characterized by Heaney, during a Protestant loyalist parade in Tyrone—a county in Northern Ireland—in 1966. This was before the “Troubles” began, but tensions were rising. The poem pictures a single drummer on the parade, who plays a lambeg: a large drum. As the procession moves on, “the drums preside, like giant tumours [sic],” and to everyone who hears them they give out one message loud and clear: “No Pope.”
“Punishment” by Seamus Heaney (1975)
“Punishment” was published in North. It explores the topic of revenge against those who offend the norms of a group. Much of the poem describes the well-preserved body of a young woman from about 2,000 years ago that was uncovered from a peat bog. The body had a halter around the neck and was weighed down by a stone. Perhaps she was punished for adultery, the speaker muses. He compares her to young Catholic women in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, who were punished for fraternizing with British soldiers.
By Seamus Heaney
Blackberry Picking
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Death of a Naturalist
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Digging
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Mid-Term Break
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North
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Punishment
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Scaffolding
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Seeing Things
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Terminus
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Two Lorries
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Whatever You Say, Say Nothing
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