Fellow poets have paid tribute to a "bohemian with good bourgeois manners" following the death of the leading Northern poet James Simmons. Mr Simmons (68) died in Co Donegal after a long illness.
The Derry-born poet, who had been unwell since suffering an aneurism last year, died at his home in Falcarragh on Wednesday. Seamus Heaney said Mr Simmons's death was "a shock and a loss" for poets throughout Ireland. "Jimmy was both beguiling and subversive, a bohemian with good bourgeois manners," he said.
The funeral service will take place at St Ann's Church, Killutt, Co Donegal, today at 2.30 p.m.
