A Heaney Commentary Heaney’s collection of poems, North, solidifies the connection between myth, history, and the modern conflict in Northern Ireland. As a native from Ulster, the county where the conflicts spurred, Heaney feels responsible in trying to cease the violence of the ongoing war through paper and pen. The poet delves deeply into the history of his people with hopes to find redemption for his ancestors’ sins, and an epiphany to the violence enclosing him. The Grauballe Man, a literary composition from North, meticulously scrutinizes the iconic ‘bog body’ on display and presents his response towards the violence and chaos revealed in the piece of artifact. Exposure, the final poem from the collection, seeks to answer the fundamental question about the adequacy of his poems as he retires to Wicklow: was his attempt to impact the ‘The Troubles’ enough to hold the line against the violence and brutality of what is happening in Ulster. In The Grauballe Man, the notions of a man’s barbaric actions are associated with the contemporary events happening between the borders of Northern Ireland and the South of England. The poem evokes flashes of darkness from the medieval era as Heaney goes through the anatomy of the preserved corpse laying before him. “The chin is a visor raised above the vent” provides an image of a knight’s visor and is used to describe the unnatural shape of the head caused by a vicious action. The hair of the Grauballe Man is describes as