... state of Irish society. Because efforts to legitimateEnglish rule in Ireland so often involve disputed rights to land andproperty, the relation of fathers to sons, of mothers to daughters, and ofpotential ... patterns ofplotting Ireland’s relation to England constitute a repertoire that shapesand limits the representation of the Irish and Ireland in both novels andpolitical discourse. Ireland may be ... orchildish Celtic Ireland occupies within the modernizing imperial familyof man. I attend to narrative structure, and to the kind of stories that gettold and retold about the Irish, so as to reveal both...