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Zak Parton

Professor Rice

UCO 1200-175

October 6th, 2019

Cure at Troy Research Paper

“Believe further shores/Can be reached from here,” (Heaney, 77) I believe this was the

hope for everyone who attended the premier of “The Cure at Troy” and especially for Heaney as

he sat there trying to be the arbiter for a 30 year time period of conflict, unsettlement, and death

between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland known as the Northern Irish Troubles.

Through the story of this play we will analyze how Seamus Heaney, a renowned poet across the

world, is quite similar to Philoctetes, who is one of the main characters of the play who struggles

with staying true to himself and his pride or being loyal to his people. These qualities mirror

those of Seamus’s during the Northern Irish Troubles and throughout his life.

Seamus Heaney was born in 1939, and was the oldest of nine other siblings From an

early age it was clear to see that Heaney was academically gifted and was not meant to take on

the farming and cattle-herding tradition of his family. Winning a scholarship to a Catholic

boarding school would be the start of Heaney’s journey. During his time there, one of his

younger brothers would pass away in a car accident, emotionally affecting Heaney, which would

later surface in some of his works. It wouldn’t be until some time later when he transferred to

Queens University in Belfast where he started reading Ted Hughes, and setting his mind and life

on poetry. Heaney would go on to graduate in his degree field with high honors and start on his

path to writing poetry. Not long after graduating, Heaney started rising to prominence in the mid
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60’s with his poem “Digging”. This being right before the Northern Irish Troubles started would

only foreshadow how influential he would become as a poet during the time of conflict. While

coming into his own as a writer and even during his prominence, Heaney always struggled with

himself, having a constant tug-of-war between his responsibility to himself and his own creative

expression and to his responsibility to use his poetry to socially and politically be a voice for his

people. Being such an influential poet, speaking out alongside one of the sides of the conflict

could have very well changed the tide of the conflict to that sides favor and possibly ended the

conflict early, but most definitely leaving a fissure within the country forever. By doing so

though, Heaney would’ve been selling himself and his creative freedom for other people’s

causes, thus stunting his growth and keeping him from becoming what he came to be. Heaney

kept relatively unbiased during the conflict, gaining international fame. It wouldn't be until late

in the conflict and his career that he would finally use his influential pen and words to not take a

side, but instead be a voice of reason and wisdom between both sides of the conflict. Not long

after premiering his play translation “The Cure at Troy”, Heaney would go on to win the Nobel

Peace Prize in 1995 and following that, 3 years after, the Northern Irish Troubles would finally

come to an end.

During Seamus’s life, one of the most grueling and terrible conflicts of Northern Ireland

would take place. This event would plague Northern Ireland for three decades with terrorist

conflict and death from the year 1968-1998. The main sides of the conflict were Northern Irish

Catholics and Northern Irish Protestants. The English were also apart of the conflict as well but

the main argument was between the catholics and protestants. It was a political war over who

had a right to Northern Ireland and who didn’t. Both sides had very strong cases, historically
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speaking, to why they had more of a right. Another part of the conflict was that the protestants

wanted Northern Ireland to stay apart of the United Kingdom, while the catholics wanted to

break away and join the rest of Ireland, forming a United Ireland. Their were many different

aspects of conflict but this is what it boiled down to. Most people would say that the start of the

conflict stems from the founding of Northern Ireland in 1921 and while this is true, I would view

it more as the final nail in the coffin so to speak. The tensions between the catholics and the

protestants goes back much further than that, back to the year 1600 during the Ulster Plantation.

During this time, the English forced protestant Scots into Northern Ireland, and to make room for

them forced Northern Irish catholics out of where they were living which resulted in the deaths

of many catholics. Fast forward to July 12, 1690, during the Battle of the Boyne, which saw

King William III (protestant) defeat King James II (catholic). This would ensure that protestants

would be able to stay and survive in Northern Ireland. From this day stemmed a protestant

holiday where the orange men marched, forming the Orange Order to celebrate the Battle of the

Boyne and mock catholics. Going forward again to 1798, marking one of the only times you will

see catholics and protestants fighting together to overthrow English rule and almost win but were

defeated. Now to the year 1916 when once again the Irish would come together to spark another

revolution called the Eastern Rebellion to again, try to overthrow British rule and declare

independence by taking over key locations in Dublin such as the post office. This was led by

Padriag Pearse and James Connolly, but was squashed fairly quickly. Both leaders would be

executed along with 14 others which would leave a bad taste in the mouths of the Irish for many

years to come. We finally come back to 1921 where Ireland is divided, leaving Southern Ireland

gaining independence while Northern Ireland is forced to remain apart of the United Kingdom,
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which further deepens the tensions between catholics who wanted to be independent and

protestants who wanted to stay apart of the United Kingdom. All these events festered for years

until it all exploded in the late 1960’s with terrorist bombings from both the catholics and the

protestants. From then on the catholics would be called unionists and would form the IRA, and

would be led by their political figureheads Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, and Ian

McGuinnes even though Adams claimed not to be apart of the IRA. The protestants would be

known as loyalists and would form the Ulster Constitution Defense Committee (UCDC) and the

Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV), and would be led by Ian Paisley, a popular protestant

preacher. Perhaps one of the worst days of conflict would be on July 21st, 1972 on a day called

“Bloody Friday”, which would result in 22 bombings set oof in Belfast, killing a handful of

civilians and soldiers. Many shootings and bombings would be carried out up until the end of the

conflict in 1998 where the Belfast Agreement was made also leading to the Good Friday

Agreement, thus restoring self government to Northern Ireland.

To examine “The Cure at Troy”, we will be doing it through the relationship shared

between the character Philoctetes and Heaney himself and how they mirror each other. This

comes from a review on Heaney’s adaption of the play, written by Colin Meir in 1990, “​When

this deception is uncovered, a more subtle and enduring conflict develops in the main character,

Philoctetes, who, in the words of Heaney’s programme note ’suffers a division in himself

between a sense of personal grievance and an inner command (which he keeps repressing) to

comprehend his own experience, however painful, in the light of a more generous, less

self-centred vision’”. (Meir, 27) From this quote we can see that emotionally Heaney and

Philoctetes were quite similar. Like Philoctetes, Heaney was scarred emotionally by his
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community. If you were anyone from Northern Ireland, no matter the side you affiliated with, the

amount of strife and death that occurred was enough to make you break down on a day to day

basis. You can imagine that Heaney being an adult throughout the troubles, and being right in the

thick of it for quite some time was emotionally taken aback by what his people were doing to

each other everyday. Heaney, just like Philocotetes was wounded emotionally. Another thing

that I didn’t mention in Heaney’s brief biography, was that he lived kind of alienated and alone

with his family in the countryside for a long period of time. One would say he was marooned

there, just like Philoctetes on Lemnos. Heaney really didn’t have much choice but to move out

there, due to the constant political pressure from people that were fighting for their cause.

Heaney could have stayed within the city but would have risked being sucked into the political

soup to be thrashed around and used by these politicians to further their own cause. Again, like

Philoctetes, Heaney was forced by his own people to live secluded and marooned. Another one

of the main ways I’d like to compare these two would be through Heaney’s pen and Philoctetes

bow and their impact on their respective worldly crisis. This quote comes right after

Neoptolomus gains Philoctetes trust and bow and Philoctetes is asleep while Neoptolomus

argues with the Chorus saying, “Without him the cause will be shamed and our victory will be

hollow.”(Heaney, 46). From this we can see that, for each crisis, it couldn’t just be anyone

writing with the pen or shooting the bow. Yes they could have used anyone for their causes but it

would not have nearly carried the weight needed to change the tide. The Greeks needed it to be

Philoctetes behind the bow just like either side during The Troubles needed Heaney to be behind

the pen. Only they knew what to do to end the war, only they had the sway to tip the scales of

war. Heaney's global influence and mastery of language and message would have been what
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either side needed to win, just like how Philoctetes prophecy required him to be the one who

used the bow, and after all, it was his bow and there was no other who could wield its power like

he could. Lastly, I would like to compare the two with this quote from Neoptolomus speaking on

Philoctetes after he refuses to leave the island to help them and instead stay by himself in pain

and loneliness. “The danger is you’ll break if you do not bend,/So I give up. From now on, you

can live/With every consequence of your decision.”(Heaney, 74) From this you can see that

Neoptolomus was saying that if Philoctetes continues to wallow in his pain and self pity due to

his pride, instead of bending and learning how to forgive and move on to finally leave Lemnos

and heal himself and help his people, he would eventually break himself, in spirit and in mind.

The same thing could be said of Heaney, after years of not saying anything and staying neutral

during The Troubles, living with his emotional scars and broken relationships between friends

who were apart of the cause. In the end, if Heaney had not done “The Cure at Troy”, he may

have very well lived the rest of his life without the conflict ending and would have had no

emotional release or peace of mind and would have continued living alone on his own island.

Heaney, like Philoctetes, chose to make a difference in the end and find some peace and healing

knowing he helped end the war and could finally heal along with all of his people.

To conclude, we have examined through the play that both Heaney and Philoctetes were

emotionally hurt and forced to live alone by their people, but were also the only ones who could

truly and easily end the conflict going on in their worlds but struggled to break away from their

pain to help a higher cause staying adamant to their pride. In the end, they both chose to bend

instead of break and decided to spark a change to help their people. Both men were able to instill
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in themselves and their people the belief that they can “reach further shores” from where they

began.
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Works Cited

Heaney, Seamus, and Sófocles . The Cure at Troy: a Version of Sophocles Philoctetes.​

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991.

​ ice
Rice, Adrian . “Lecture Notes on the History of The Northern Irish Troubles”​. R

Publications, 2019

“The Nobel Prize in Literature 1995.” ​NobelPrize.org,​

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1995/heaney/biographical/​.

Wiepking, Ruairi, "The Path to Peace: Conflict Theory and Northern Ireland’s Troubles

(1968-1998)" (2011). Master's Theses. 13. ​https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/13

Meir, and Colin. “Irish Poetic Drama: Seamus Heaney's The Cure at Troy.” ​OpenEdition

Books,​ Presses Universitaires De Caen, 1 Jan. 1991,

https://books.openedition.org/puc/614?lang=en#text​.