Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and Nobel winner, dies at 74 - Considered Ireland's greatest poet since William Butler Yeats, Heaney won the 1995 Nobel Prize for literature.

LONDON -- Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize-winning poet whose crystalline, descriptive verse led many to consider him the best Irish poet since Yeats, died Thursday. He was 74.

His death was confirmed by his publishers, Faber and Faber, which said that it could not "adequately express our profound sorrow at the loss of one of the world's greatest writers. His impact on literary culture is immeasurable."

The publishing house said in a statement issued on behalf of his family that Heaney died in a Dublin hospital after a short illness.

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