Novelist Sean O'Faolain, playwright Brian Friel, and poet Seamus Heaney have been highly critical of the Irish revolutionary generation for its oversimplification of the interstice between past and present. These post-war writers complain that the nationalists see Irish history as a great romantic narrative with a tragic beginning and possibly a happy ending. The present collection of essays centres on the implications of an intricate conception of Irish history and identity. It emphasises both the historical considerations and the literary representations of Irish identities. The text of the "Good Friday Peace Accord" is included along with individual chapters on the slow triumph of politics, historical revisionism, uses of the national anthem, on Sean O'Faolain, on Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes", and nationalism and unionism in this decade. The chapters on literary representation discuss the peotry of Northern Ireland, of John Hewitt and Seamus Heaney, James Joyce's "modern hells", Samuel Beckett, and the state of the Irish theatre.
Apart from essays by such Irish writers as Tom Garvin, Colm Toibin, Edna Longley, and Fintan O'Toole, the collection contains contributions by American, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish scholars.