premature post-nationalism before the post-colonial has even
happened in the North of Ireland.
A French-Born Sea
Such a line of argument needs elaborating in relation to McGuckianís
French influences: in ëOn Ballycastle Beachí the daughter comes from
a ëFrench-born seaí and there is a sense of the Northern beach in
Antrim being connected with France. Geographically, this is odd since
the South of Ireland is closer to France than the North. This French
connection can be understood in relation to a history of French aid to
Irish nationalists. The connection with France can also be read in
terms of post-nationalism whereby Irish identity is understood in
relation to the rest of Europe. Appeals to a French-born sea and the
use of French in McGuckianís poetry suggest an attempt at wish
fulfilment that imagines England is less geopolitically close than is
France, resulting in a selective geography that chooses to forget
Irelandís less hospitable neighbour. In this way, McGuckian plays
with European cartography.
Edna Longley makes a surprising statement when she notices
how Northern writing is involved in a project of remapping and border
transgression: ëNorthern writing does not fit the binary shapes cut out
by Nationalism and Unionism [Ö] It overspills borders and manifests
a web of affiliation that stretches beyond any heartland ñ to the rest of
Ireland, Britain, Europe.í^45 Longley continues by arguing that
the term ëidentityí has been coarsened in Ulster politics to signify two
ideological-package deals immemorially on offer. To admit to more varied,
mixed, fluid and relational kinds of identity would advance nobodyís territorial
claim. It would undermine cultural ideologies. It would subvert the male-pride
that keeps up the double frontier-siege.^4645 Edna Longley, ëFrom Cathleen to Anorexiaí, The Living Stream: Literature and
Revisionism in Ireland (Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1994), p.194.
46 Ibid.