Sweeney Astray

Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish is a version of the Irish poem Buile Shuibhne written by Seamus Heaney, based on an earlier edition and translation by J. G. O'Keeffe.^[2][3][4] The work was first published in 1983 and won the 1985 PEN Translation Prize for poetry.^[5]

Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish

First edition
Author	Seamus Heaney
Language	English
Publisher	Field Day Publications, Derry/Dublin[1]
Publication date	1983-11-01[1]
Publication place	Ireland
Pages	85
ISBN	0-946755-03-5
OCLC	11339072
Dewey Decimal	821/.914 19
LC Class	PR6058.E2 S9 1984b

Photographer Rachel Giese and Heaney later collaborated to juxtapose selected passages of Heaney's translation with Giese's photographs of sites mentioned in the text, a work published as Sweeney's Flight.^[6][7]

Editions

• Seamus Heaney, Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish (Derry: Field Day Publications, 1983), ISBN 0-946755-03-5
• Seamus Heaney, Sweeney Astray (London: Faber, 1984), ISBN 0571133606
• Seamus Heaney and Rachael Giese, Sweeney's Flight: Based on the Revised Text of 'Sweeney Astray', with the Complete Revised Text of 'Sweeney Astray' (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1992); pp. 85–117 print the complete text, with revisions
• Seamus Heaney, Sweeney Astray (London: Faber and Faber, 2001) ISBN 0571210090; prints the revised text first published in Sweeney's Flight

Anthologisations

Selections from Sweeney Astray appear in:

• Seamus Heaney, New Selected Poems 1966–1987 (London: Faber and Faber, 1990), ISBN 9780571143726
• Seamus Heaney, Opened Ground: Poems 1966–1996 (London: Faber and Faber, 1998), ISBN 9780571262793