SOURCE: “Earth Writing: Seamus Heaney and Ciaran Carson,” in Essays in Criticism, Vol. XLVIII, No. 2, April, 1998, pp. 144-68.

In the following essay, Kerrigan compares and contrasts the poetry of Ciaran Carson and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney.

In the human geography of these islands, diversity is the rule. Plainly, however, there are regions in which the juxtapositions of difference do not coincide with a tolerant multi-culturalism. Although the Troubles could only have happened in Ulster, there are aspects of the situation which echo across the archipelago. Events in Northern Ireland can seem locked—not least for Seamus Heaney—in a violent past which other parts of the archipelago have forgotten (1798, 1690), yet the linguistic, electronic, and environmental resources used to manage the crisis (from the media-manipulation of politicians to the surveillance systems of the military) are, as Ciaran Carson reminds us, as wired-up and futuristic as anything to be found...