SOURCE: Keen, Paul. “The Doubled Edge: Identity and Alterity in the Poetry of Eavan Boland and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.” Mosaic 33, no. 3 (September 2000): 19-34.

In the following essay, Keen places the poetry of Boland and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill in relation to their writings on gender, nationalism, and history.

In November 1994, the Irish government collapsed. Its disintegration was all the more dramatic because the Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, was enjoying unprecedented popularity for his role in brokering an IRA cease-fire and securing the prospect of peace negotiations. Within weeks he had resigned in disgrace over his promotion of Harry Whelehan to president of the high court after it emerged that Whelehan, while serving as attorney-general, had delayed for seven months a warrant for the extradition of a paedophilic priest, Father Brendan Smyth. Reflecting on these events, the Irish columnist Fintan O'Toole suggested that like the surreal Irish novel At Swim-Two-Birds, the...