Collection of essays. The essays combine historical, cultural, and literary analyses in their treatment 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 unwillinly enters. Others are 'poststructuralist', considering the narration of exile as a celebration of transgression, hybridity, and otherness. The essays cover, among others, Butler, D'Arcy McGee, Mulholland, Joyce, Hewitt, Van Morrison, Ní Chuilleanáin, Doyle, and Banville.