Act of Union

“Act of Union” is a poem by renowned Irish poet Seamus Heaney; it was published in Heaney’s fourth collection, North (1975). The poem, which is in the form of two sonnets, functions at two levels. On the first level, the male speaker describes the pregnancy of a woman carrying his child; at the second level, the poem is an allegory of the fraught relationship between England and Ireland—especially concerning what were known as the "Troubles,” which began in Northern Ireland in 1968 and over the following decades, led to sectarian strife during which thousands of people died. The poem is one of a number Heaney wrote in response to the Troubles.

Poet Biography

Seamus Heaney is considered one of the most prominent poets of the 20th century. He was born into a Catholic family on April 13, 1939, in County Derry, Northern Ireland. His parents were farmers and he was the eldest of nine children. In 1957, Heaney enrolled at Queen’s College, Belfast, where he studied English language and literature. He graduated in 1961, after which he acquired a teacher’s training diploma from St. Joseph’s College of Education in Belfast. In 1963, he became lecturer in English at St.