Irish poet Seamus Heaney dies

Irish writer Seamus Heaney, who won the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, has died at the age of 74.

Heaney was awarded the prize "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past".

The Nobel prize-winner was born in April 1939, the eldest of nine children, on a small farm called Mossbawn near Bellaghy, in Co Derry, Northern Ireland, and his upbringing often played out in the poetry he wrote in later years.

In later years he lived in Dublin. His family are expected to issue a statement later on Friday.