North

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1985

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Historical Context

“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.

Political-Religious Context

Heaney’s “North” is, in many ways, a reflection on Ireland’s history of violence that dates back at least as far as the Nordic raids and settlements. Heaney links this history with his contemporary experience of the Troubles, a 30-year conflict between Catholic Northern Ireland and Protestant England. The seeds of the Troubles date back to the Anglo-Norman invasion in the 12th century and later English colonization of Ireland in the 16th century. In 1921, much of Ireland gained independence from English rule and formed the Irish Free State (now known as the Republic of Ireland), while the northern, Protestant parts of Ireland remained under British rule.

The 1960s saw the rise of a nationalist movement among the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. Ireland, at the time, was heavily stratified based on religious belief, with Catholics relegated to the lower strata; the nascent movement took inspiration from the United States’ civil rights movement, staging mass protests to draw attention to anti-Catholic discrimination. These protests led to police crackdowns, arrests, and acts of violence between Catholic nationalists and Protestant loyalists. The conflicts continued from 1968 to 1998, and resulted in over 3,000 dead, 33,000 injured, and thousands of homes burned to the ground.

Heaney wrote “North” in 1975, in the midst of the Troubles, and it is hard to separate the poem’s reference to the “hatreds and behind-backs / of the althing” (Lines 25-26) from contemporary Irish conflicts. The collection North, where the titular poem appeared, contains many poems that deal specifically with the Troubles and life in Northern Ireland during that time. It is particularly interesting in this context that Heaney, who was of Catholic heritage, has his speaker relate, but not repeat, the longship’s violent imagery.