The essays in this collection combine historical, cultural, and literary analyses in their treatment of aspects of exile in Irish writing. Some are 'structuralist' in seeing exile as a physical state of being, often associated with absence, into which an individual willingly or unwillingly enters. Others are 'poststructuralist', considering the narration of exile as a celebration of transgressiveness, hybridity, and otherness. This type of exile moves away from a political, cultural, economic idea of exile to an understanding of exile in a wider existential sense. The theme of exile is discussed in a wide range of texts including literature, political writings and song-writing, either in works of Irish writers not normally associated with exile, or in which new aspects of 'exile' can be discerned. The essays cover, among others: Butler, D'Arcy McGee, Mulholland, Joyce, Hewitt, Van Morrison, Ní Chuilleanáin, Doyle, and Banville.
