Book excerpt: The essays in this collection combine historical, cultural, and literary analyses in their treatment of aspects of exile in Irish writing. Some are 'structuralist' in seeing exile as a physical state of being, often associated with absence, into which an individual willingly or unwillingly enters. Others are 'poststructuralist', considering the narration of exile as a celebration of transgressiveness, hybridity, and otherness. This type of exile moves away from a political, cultural, economic idea of exile to an understanding of exile in a wider existential sense. The volume presents readings of Irish literature, history and culture that reflect some of the historical, sociological, psychological and philosophical dimensions of exile in the 1800s and 1900s. The theme of exile is discussed in a wide range of texts including literature, political writings and song-writing, either in works of Irish writers not normally associated with exile, or in which new aspects of 'exile' can be discerned. The essays cover, among others: Butler, D'Arcy McGee, Mulholland, Joyce, Hewitt, Van Morrison, Ni Chuilleanain, Doyle, and Banville.