Colonization as Sexual Violence in "Act of Union" Olivia F. Vega College

Irish nationalist Seamus Heaney’s 1975 poem “Act of Union,” written three years after the massacre known as Bloody Sunday, explores the political unification of the colonizer, England, and the colonized, Ireland in which Ireland and England unified to become the United Kingdom in 1801. Heaney weaves the relationship between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland through the metaphor of a sexual encounter. Ireland is personified as female, positioned as inferior to her male dominator, England. Rather than portraying the sexual act through a lens of loving intimacy, Heaney depicts a violent rape, in which England impregnates Ireland, leaving her with the repercussions of his sexually violent act. The union produces a troubled offspring, representative of Northern Ireland. Heaney challenges his audience, asserting that unification requires continued subjugation of the oppressed. In portraying Ireland as feminine and England as masculine, Heaney asserts the inherent inequality present between the two countries, using an extended bodied metaphor to argue that Ireland will remain the victim of political violence, even under the guise of unification with “her” colonizer, England. Ireland is a victim, systematically...