North

“North” is intimately engaged with the history of Ireland and its long relationship with Greenland, Iceland, and Nordic raiders. Though Ireland’s ancient Celtic people are well-known for their raids on the British Isles and much of Europe prior to the introduction of Christianity in the 4th or 5th century, Heaney chooses to focus only on the Nordic invasions of Ireland. This choice connects the settlement and shaping of Ireland by foreign Viking forces to the later Anglo-Norman invasion of the 12th century, which began a period of English rule over Ireland that lasted until the early 20th century.

Making these implicit connections, Heaney places Ireland as a site of colonization, a victim of raiding parties, and a place where violence arises from outside influence rather than occurs inherently. Heaney avoids all mention of the Celtic long swords that fought the Roman Empire, and only describes those of the “fabulous raiders” that continually flowed into Ireland since the 9th century (Line 9). Likewise, Heaney depicts much of the violence that occurs on Irish soil as the result of “hatreds and behind-backs / of the althing” (Line 25-26), suggesting that the violence in Ireland is the result of outside political forces.