ABSTRACT
Each of these writers has a different relationship to Ireland: Boland lived there until her father’s job required a move to London when she was six; as an adult, she chose to return to Ireland to live, though she spends part of her time in the United States. Byron, daughter of an English father and Galway mother, grew up in Belfast until the family moved to England when she was 17. Dooley was raised in England by Irish immigrant parents. Dooley dismisses what she calls ‘prurient’ readings of her work, saying in interview that her ‘poems offer glimpses of my experience and my perception, my imagination and my moods. They are not my autobiography’ (Vianu, 2006, n.p.). While this is a valid claim, it is nevertheless the case that a number of her poems are imbued with a strong sense of Irish heritage.
