I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying -
He had always taken funerals in his stride -
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble."
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With large Irish families — Heaney was the eldest of nine children — the ages of the children are often confusing to outsiders.  Note that ‘whispers informed’ is a misplaced epithet, (also known as  hypallage ) — it is those people doing the whispering that provide the information, not the inanimate whispers themselves. 
 By using this form, Heaney achieves the ironic conciseness that marks out this poem.
Mid-Term Break