The first four lines of the first sonnet lay out two parallel narratives that run the entirety of the poem. In Line 1, the male speaker refers to the movement of the fetus in the womb. Lines 2-4 compare this to a bog subject to heavy rainfall, leading to a “bog-burst, / a gash breaking open the ferny bed” (Lines 3-4). The reference to the gash is also to the woman’s body that opens to deliver the baby. A bog consists of wet, muddy ground with acidic, peaty soil formed by partial decomposition of vegetable matter. There are many bogs in Ireland; indeed, the country is known for them, so these lines immediately suggest Ireland and classify it as feminine. Ireland has long been presented as feminine in literature and mythology, so Heaney is on well-established ground.

The second quatrain (Lines 4-8) continues to mingle the pregnancy narrative with the allegory. The male speaker, who is metaphorically England, presents the woman’s back as metaphorically being Ireland’s eastern coast: She is lying with her back to him as he reaches out to her from England. (The speaker can be seen either as a man observing the development of the pregnancy in his wife or lover or metaphorically as England itself, observing the effects of England’s historical imperial dominance of Ireland.) The woman’s limbs are then extended (“thrown” [Line 6]) across the island to the west, over the hills and to the more jagged western coastline. (A glance at the shape of Ireland on a map will show what the poet had in mind.)

In Lines 7-8, the man caresses the woman’s pregnant belly (“heaving province”) where the offspring of their sexual union is growing. In terms of the allegory, the “heaving province where our past has grown” (Line 8) is Ulster—the six counties that comprise the province of Northern Ireland, which is still under British rule. The presence of a part of Ireland still under British control is the result of “our past” (Line 8); that is, the long relationship between Britain and Ireland including the Act of Union that is the title of the poem. The “heaving province” (Line 8) also suggests the civil disturbances that wreaked havoc in Northern Ireland in the mid-1970s when the poem was published.

The third quatrain further elaborates on that relationship. The man/England is the “tall kingdom” (Line 9) to whom/which the woman/Ireland had to submit and give herself. The man/England could not be persuaded against what he/it intended to do, and the woman/Ireland could not ignore or resist his/England’s amorous (or imperialistic) attentions. At the level of the relationship between a man and a woman resulting in pregnancy, Lines 9-10 can be interpreted as the man bent on his purpose like an ardent lover or as an aggressive seducer who would not take no for an answer. Interpreting these same lines at the allegorical level, Ireland has no say in its (her) fate, dominated as it has been for centuries by England: its larger and stronger neighbor.

In Lines 11-12, the speaker denies the reality of conquest. Either as an individual man or as the collective entity England, he says “Conquest is a lie” (Line 11). The woman still has a “half-independent” (Line 12) life; she is in a partnership with a man, and the coming baby is a joint creation. Her independent existence has not been annihilated. Applied to the allegory, however, the speaker perhaps sounds a grudging note in the line, “Conceding your half-independent shore” (Line 12), as if it was unwillingly done as a concession to the reality of the situation when he/England “grew older,” or as history unfolded over centuries. “Half-independent” (Line 12) refers to Ireland’s divided status. The Republic of Ireland may be an independent country, but Ulster is the bastard child of an unhappy union between England and Ireland. Lines 13 and 14 show that the stage is set both at the individual and collective level. The woman will give birth to the child. Nothing can stop this. More ominously, however, is the same reality applied at the level of the allegory, concerning the offspring of the union of England and Ireland to which the long shared and troubled history between the two countries has been leading. The violence of that legacy is presented in the second sonnet.

The speaker begins the second sonnet “And I am still imperially / Male” (Lines 15-16). This might be read as unsympathetic or unrepentant, as if the man/England is claiming that there is nothing he can do about his own status now that the entire process has been set in motion. This links the statement to the word “inexorably” (Line 14)—the last word of the first sonnet, referring to his “legacy” (Line 13), (meaning that it is impossible to stop).

The sonnet continues with a series of violent images referring both to the developing pregnancy as the baby grows and makes its presence felt within the womb, and to the disturbing developments in the troubled England-Ireland relationship. Line 18, for example, which concludes the first quatrain of the second sonnet, reads: “The battering ram, the boom burst from within.” Lines 19-25, although they do refer to the coming child as it readies itself to enter the world, seem to apply with more force to the allegorical meaning. In that respect, “The act” (Line 19) likely refers to the Act of Union. In 1922, this union gave way to the independence of Ireland with the exception of Ulster, at the north of the island, which remained in British hands. Ulster was dominated by Protestants who remained loyal to the British crown but discriminated against the minority Catholic population. In the context of the poem, Ulster becomes the “obstinate fifth column” (Line 19). A fifth column is a group that works from within to undermine a larger group or nation. The fifth column in the poem is likely the Protestant loyalists and their paramilitary groups such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defense Association (UDA). The tenacious and inflexible (and violent) loyalty of these groups to Britain undermined the attempts of the British government to find a solution to the problem. The Protestant loyalists are therefore the group “Whose stance is growing unilateral” (Line 20); that is, they insist upon acting on their own without reference to political direction from the British government or anyone else.

The metaphor is extended in Lines 21-25. The sound of the “wardrum [sic]” (Line 21) (the baby’s beating heart in the pregnancy narrative) is also likely a reference to the Protestant parades featuring pipes and drums held in Northern Ireland. For example, the annual march of the Apprentice Boys in Derry celebrated Protestant victory against a Catholic army in 1689, when the siege of Londonderry (as it was then known) was lifted. The Apprentice Boys' march was often accompanied by sectarian violence. In August 1969, for example, the march led to two days of riots and the subsequent deployment of the British Army on the streets of Northern Ireland. The “little fists” (Line 23), besides referencing the baby in the womb, also likely refer to the Protestant loyalists who not only disturb the peace in Ulster but also present a threat to the stability of England, the power “across the water” (Line 25). The baby—Ulster—is declared “parasitical” (Line 22) because it not self-contained; it feeds off a larger conflict long preceding it.

The conclusion of the poem, in which the allegory seems more prominent than the pregnancy narrative, is pessimistic. The speaker sees “No treaty” (Line 25) that could offer a solution to the intractable problem. Like the woman about to give birth, Ireland must endure “the big pain” (Line 27) that will leave it “raw, like opened ground, again” (Line 28). The reference appears to be to Ireland’s long history of pain suffered at the hands of Britain; what is taking place now, as described in the poem, is not the first time it has happened. The line could also mean that for the woman, this is not the first time she has given birth.