Leading Irish poet Seamus Heaney dies

Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, has died after half a century of writing about the nature and politics of his homeland. He was 74.

"The death has taken place of Seamus Heaney," said a statement released on Friday by his publicists at publishers Faber and Faber, on behalf of the Heaney family.

"The poet and Nobel Laureate died in hospital in Dublin this morning after a short illness,” the statement said.

Heaney was the third Irishman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, joining William Butler Yeats and Samuel Beckett.

The Northern Ireland-born Heaney was widely considered Ireland's greatest poet since Yeats. He wrote 13 collections of poetry, two plays, four prose works on the process of poetry and many other works.

He toured universities worldwide following his 1995 Nobel win, and curtailed his work following a stroke in 2006.

Al Jazeera and wire services