It is with deep regret that we learned this morning of the death of Chuck Feeney, founder of Atlantic Philanthropies (AP). Without Chuck and his foundation there would, very simply, be no Heaney Centre. It was an initial AP gift of £2.5m that allowed us to open in 2003, while a further gift, in 2015 funded a special project that brought, among other things, the Children’s Writing Fellow and Visiting International Poetry Fellow into being. Like a great many others, we are every day in Chuck Feeney’s debt. And like a great many others we join today with his family and all those close to him in mourning his passing.