He have a wee roundy head – Goodbye Mr Heaney

This isn’t my Seamus Heaney story, but is it a Seamus Heaney story.

I was sitting in a pub surrounded by nine pints of Guinness (three people, last orders, doubled up obvs) in Northern Ireland when my friend commented that someone had a “wee roundy head”.

When pressed on the origin of that particular insult he said Irish Poet Laureate Seamus Heaney had dropped it at a dinner party once. Heaney faced the same scrutiny and explained it had come from his days as a teacher.

Apparently he had a studious boy in his class who got top marks, handed in everything beautifully written and ambitious. The small lad sat next to a much larger, much less academically minded boy whose ruddy thoughts were much more earth bound. He didn’t appear to be that academically gifted.

They regularly handed in identical papers.

The schoolmaster was loath to jump to conclusions about swotty boys versus farming lads but he had to step in.

The next time a written test was set in class. The topic was “The Swallow”. He let the two boys sit together for the first 10 minutes and then separated them for the remainder of the test.

The studious boy handed in his paper with beautifully executed penmanship.

“The swallow is a migratory bird. The Barn Swallow migrates from the forests of North America to the plains of South America…”

The text carried on like this for two pages.The other boy’s paper had two carefully written lines the first said ”

The swallow is a migratory bird.” and the second?”

He have a wee roundy head.”