Northern Irish Poetry and the Russian Turn: Intertextuality in the Work of Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin and Medbh McGuckian

Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin and Medbh McGuckian are the three most influential poets from Northern Ireland who have composed poems with a link to the Tsarist Empire and the Soviet Union. Through their references to Russia the three poets achieve a geographical and mental detachment allowing them to turn a fresh eye on the Northern Irish situation.