Seamus Heaney described himself as a person who "emerged from a hidden and buried life and entered the field of education" ("Seamus Heaney "). This quote showed him growing from a poor child living in a depressed farming town in Northern Ireland to a Nobel Peace Prize-winning poet and professor. He was a postmodern and contemporary poet who transformed the conflict between Catholics and Protestants into a literary debate. Without influential unorthodox poets like Heaney, the revolution would have ended extremely differently. Seamus Heaney was a poet throughout much of modern history, from Neil Armstrong walking on the moon to the present day. Seamus Heaney was a product of the postmodern and contemporary era, a time of rebellion in Northern Ireland, as his writings exemplified the literary characteristics of idealism and self-expression. When Seamus Heaney began writing poetry, the feud between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants was heating up, and by 1971 it had become a civil war ("Seamus Heaney – Biographical"). Civilian deaths were not uncommon during the riots, and military barricades were being constructed. It was a time of intense war in Northern Ireland. The English army tried to calm the citizens, but this only made the problems worse. The riots were bloody and often resulted in hundreds of deaths (“Seamus Heaney, Irish poet”). The most famous day of the rebellion was that considered "Bloody Sunday" ("Seamus Heaney: "Casualty""). It was at this time that the British army attacked twenty-six unarmed citizens (“Seamus Heaney: “Casualty””). These massacres of citizens tripled the scale of the conflict. This era was also a period of segregation in the United States (“Significant historical events in the United States from 1950 to 2013”). Civil rights...... middle of paper...... the ideas were very deep, thoughtful and above all free. In the lines “All free as the wind” and “Their imaginations ruled their whims,” the freedom and imagination overflowing from these children is evident. These children were the children of joy and love. At the end of the poem, the last five lines transition to when the children are older and how they have changed, but their idealism and innocence will hopefully be the same. This era shows us that all these people with high ideas and self-expression have changed the way we live today, from integration to simple liberated creativity. The postmodern and contemporary era has been full of changes and developments, and without special poets, such as Seamus Heaney, we would not have been able to read about the times in which the poets lived, while learning the history of 'such a thorough way..