... Introduction In Seamus Heaney’s allegorical lyric, ‘‘Act of Union’’ (), the coup-ling of England and Ireland issues in the conception of ‘‘an obstinatefifth column,’’ ‘‘the heaving province’’ ... disciplinary training and location in US English studies, aswell as my investment in a feminist postcolonial mode of analysis, makefor significant differences of emphasis in how I proceed, and in ... between here and there, present and past, implicit in his own history and in that of theplaces he and his have inhabited, which also continuously inhabit him. Allegories of Union in Irish and English...