Much-loved poet, playwright and Nobel prize winner Seamus Heaney has died.

The 74-year-old, from Castledawson, County Derry, won the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature 'for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past'.

Heaney was widely considered Ireland's greatest poet since William Butler Yeats and also earned numerous other honours.

He was born in April 1939, the eldest of nine children, on a small farm called Mossbawn near Bellaghy, and his upbringing often played out in the poetry he wrote in later years.

It is believed he had been suffering ill health for some time and had been living in Dublin, where he died in hospital.

Heaney is survived by his wife, Marie, and children, Christopher, Michael and Catherine Ann.

His family will issue a statement later.

Funeral arrangements are to be announced later.

His poems have been a staple of English classes all over Britain for generations. 

Over a half-century career he wrote 13 collections of poetry, two plays, four prose works on the process of poetry, and many other works.

His 1966 piece Digging, from Death of a Naturalist, was particularly famous, ending with the words: 'Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it'.

As the Troubles took hold in Northern Ireland later that decade, his experiences were seen through the darkened mood of his work.

His other collections, including Wintering Out, in 1972, North, 1975, Seeing Things in 1991, and Human Chain in 2010 were widely acclaimed, as was his translation of Beowulf.

THE BOOKCOVER OF THE BOOK 'BEOWULF' BY AUTHOR SEAMUS HEANEY

He toured universities worldwide following his 1995 Nobel win but curtailed his work following a 2006 stroke. 

It once took him three hours to walk down Dublin's main street as autograph hunters pursued him.

He was educated at St Columb's College, Derry, a Catholic boarding school, and later at Queen's University Belfast, before making his home in Dublin, with periods of teaching in the US.

Heaney was an honorary fellow at Trinity College Dublin and last year was bestowed with the Seamus Heaney Professorship in Irish Writing at the university, which he described as a great honour.

Last year he was named in the top 25 living geniuses in the world.

Ireland’s Arts Minister, Jimmy Deenihan, praised Heaney for his work as a literary great but also for promoting Ireland.

THE GENIUS OF HEANEY: GREAT LINES FROM IRELAND'S LOVED POET

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'Between my finger and my thumb, The squat pen rests; snug as a gun' - from his poem Digging.

'Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in a cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four foot box, a foot for every year' - from his poem Mid-term Break.

'When History says, don't hope, On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme' - from the play The Cure At Troy and quoted by then US president Bill Clinton in a speech about the Northern Ireland peace process delivered in Londonderry in 1995.

'It's like being a little foothill at the bottom of a mountain range, you hope you just live up to it' - Heaney on receiving the Nobel Prize and being regarded as the equal of WB Yeats

'It was like opening the back door of our own house, looking out on the fields' - Heaney on the influence of reading his fellow poet, Patrick Kavanagh.

'The life of poetry at its most vital is a life of fear I think and panic that it will leave' - Heaney describing his worry that his poetic inspiration might run out.

'He was just a very humble, modest man. He was very accessible,' he said.

'Anywhere I have ever travelled in the world and you mention poetry and literature and the name of Seamus Heaney comes up immediately.'

Mr Deenihan recently joined Heaney at an event at the Irish Embassy in Paris where the poet gave readings to an audience of 1,000 invited guests.

'He was a huge figure internationally, a great ambassador for literature obviously, but also for Ireland,' the minister said.

Heaney donated his personal literary notes to the National Library of Ireland in December 2011, joining the ranks of Irish literary master James Joyce and fellow Nobel winner WB Yeats.

During his literary career he held prestigious posts at Oxford University and at Harvard in the US.

Patsy McGlone, SDLP MP for Mid-Ulster, the area of Heaney's birthplace, said he has left a tremendous cultural legacy to south Derry but also to the literary world.

'Seamus Heaney was the voice of this community, a man of the people who knew his community well and reflected the history and cultural richness of that community,' he said.

'I remember him calling in to my father's business when I was younger and being struck by his humility.'

Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt described Heaney as a man of global significance.

'His influence ran broader than the arts. We all remember how US president Bill Clinton chose Heaney's great phrase about when 'hope and history rhyme' from Heaney's play The Cure At Troy in his speech in Londonderry, and went on to use it for the title of his book detailing his vision of the US in the 21st Century,' he said.

Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny said Heaney's death is a great sorrow for Ireland, language and literature. 

'He is mourned - and deeply - wherever poetry and the world of the spirit are cherished and celebrated,' he said.

'For us, Seamus Heaney was the keeper of language, our codes, our essence as a people.'

Mr Kenny said it would take Heaney himself to describe the depth of loss Ireland would feel at his death.