This study considers writing within the cultural context of Northern Ireland and discusses how writing creates a sense of community, and the different forms this takes when written from loyalist or republican perspectives. The book takes its major theoretical energy from readings of Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony and Walter Benjamin's work on historiography. hese are applied to major writers such as Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin, Paul Muldoon and Edna Longley and to institutions such as the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.