I can't believe that most of you guys don't get Heaney. It is so easy to relate his poems to all of the elements of retreat from the global. You have to consider a lot of his work as holding metaphorical value in order to do this.
To be honest, Heaney was the easiest of all my texts that I used in the exam.
For example, in the poem digging, he realises and resents the fact that he hasn't followed the traditions of his forefathers and is therefore no longer a match for "men like them". However he realises now that he will use his pen to create his own meaning and carry on the legacy of his family. Due to his upbringing in the "modern" world and his superior education, he realises that he can use the tools that he has acquired during life in such a new world to keep alive the lives of those in the traditional worlds. Thus he demonstrates how there has been an impact of the "modern" world on the "traditional boundaries of time and space".
You just have to to think of the metaphorical values of the other poems in the same ways!!!!