Act Of Union Title- The title is ambiguous; it refers to the British Parliamentary Act of Union of 1800 which forcibly

brought Ireland into Great Britain under control of Westminster. The other side of the ambiguity is the sexual act of union, sexual intercourse. Structure- The poem is a double Shakespearean sonnet. A sonnet consists of 14 lines in total, the sub genre of Shakespearean sonnet presents these 14 lines in three quatrains and a couplet. The sonnet is traditionally used for poems with the theme of love and longing, this holds relevance for Act of Union as Ill discuss later, so just keep it in mind for now. The poem has an A-B-A-B rhyme scheme in the quatrains of the first sonnet, with half rhymes on the A rhymes.

Heaney uses vivid imagery, sound devices and rhyme schemes, to depict the literal Act of Union of Britain and Ireland, both in the physical and political sense from the persona of Britain. General overview of the poem The poem begins with watery images of the Irish bog-land landscape. The first two lines suggest a start of life, the conception of a child with the first beats of the heart. The second two lines are a vicious imagery of female sex with The gash breaking open, a brutal image of destruction, not the purity generally associated with yonic images. The second quatrain brings the metaphor into a more physical sense, with the you being Ireland. The gradual hills are not only the iconic Irish landscape but also the female curves of breasts and hips. I caress/ The heaving province where our past has grown. Combines the tender physical caress with the political terminology of the province the past referred to is the political past of Ireland and England. The first line of the third quatrain identifies clearly the persona as Britain, the Tall Kingdom. There is a masculine confidence and pride within this declaration. The next line shows the importance of Britain neither cajole

nor ignore showing how Britain cannot be persuaded to change or ignored. The Persona, self identified as imperial, colonising England and as the male whos sexual conquest that is the act of union with the female victim, I.E. Ireland, is seen as a callous, unfeeling, brutal sexual desire. The metaphor of masculine sexual desire, even a rape, transfers to the British political colonisation/ Domination of Ireland also. The tone changes in the middle of the third quatrain with Conquest is a lie. This line, emphasised by the caesura, highlights the change of tone of the confident male voice, he has conquered but it has brought political turmoil, complexity and trouble. The half independent shore is referring to the concession of colonising Britain to partition Ireland into English ruled Northern Ireland and Eire. The couplet endears an ominous tone, it insinuates and suggest doom through the language of Culminates inexorably. It also has a feminine rhyme, unstressed rhyming syllables, which in poetry suggests unconcluded action.

The second sonnet begins with an almost defensive, shrill male voice And I am still imperially/ male contrasting so sharply with the masculine confidence of earlier, the persona, Britain, feels he must restate and almost reassure himself he is still imperially male. The vivid sexual imagery of the Battering ram, the boom burst from within reinstates not only the phallic symbols and sexual domination of the first sonnet, but also recreates this image of brutality and violence, the battering ram, a weapon of medieval warfare. The act sprouted an obstinate fifth column a fifth column being a double agent, in this context Northern Ireland, the child of the act of union of Ireland and Britain, meant to be British but is the site of this proIrish political turmoil. He (Northern Ireland) is growing unilateral - one sided, a political term for a single minded individualist nationalism. Its applied here to the growing child, its again blending the political and physical. His heart beneath your heart is a wardrum/ Mustering force. The language of wardrum creates an ominous tone to the line. The

enjambment combined with the caesura serves to highly emphasise this Mustering force. The quick short rhythm of the I sound creates a child like quick beat of a wardrum. The alliteration of the b sound earlier in the stanza on Battering ram, boom burst from within further highlights this quick beat. The starting of lines with verbs, emphasised through enjambment, highlights the active military connotations in the poem. No treaty/ I see will salve (Salve is an old religious term for a balm or ointment that will heal, the prophecy of the coming of Jesus in the old testament calls him a salve for human sin) This use of salve introduces the religious connotation onto the already political and physical connotations of the poem. The stretch marked body depicts Ireland now as a woman exhausted and damaged by child birth, The big pain that leaves you now. The opened ground again is another both physical and political imagery, its firstly the womans vagina opened by the brutal intercourse with Britain and the political divide of Ireland, but then Again the womans vagina is opened up in childbirth and the ongoing strife in Northern Ireland in the troubles in the 60s and 70s. The permanence and repetition is created through the full closed rhyme of pain and again. This also ends the poem with a masculine rhyme, stressed rhyming syllables which in poetry suggests a conclusion and ending of events, a resolution to conflict. However Heaney is implying here that the ending and resolution to Irelands conflicts seems to be an endless cycle of Pain and Gain. This is evident in many of Heaneys bog poems which analyse the brutal violence of the Celtic and Viking societies and question, in relation to the Irish sectarian warfare, whether we have come that far from those times, or is history a circle doomed to repeat itself.