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Perceiving herself to be without specific tradition, Eavan Boland is especially interested in the constructions and presentations of the past. By analysing two of her poems I will present an account of her understanding of the different concepts of myth and history. In 'Imago', for example, Boland is debunking traditional Irish myths. She deconstructs not only one particular myth, but Irish myths as a whole: the 'blackthorn walking stick', the 'old tara brooch', 'bog oak', 'harp', 'wolfhound' etc. That these mythical foundations are mostly nineteenth-century constructions of Irish origins is well known, and the unmaking of myths is a current feature of Anglo-Irish poetry after Yeats. Boland, however, seems to be more interested in the complex ways a myth is made to function than to show the falseness of the mythical story. In this paper I will examine Boland's attitudes towards the presentation of the past in both myth and history, and the relation of both forms of presentation to the ideal of an unmediated past, that is, to an account of the past not distorted by the medium in which it is presented. The bottom-line of this analysis will be that every form of presentation of the past is a construction and an attempt to represent something that is forever lost. Unfortunately, this insight does not free one from the duty of coming to terms with the burden of an unchangeable past, or, as Boland said in her autobiographical prose work Object Lessons: 'Yet in the end, in my need to make a construct of that past, it came down to a simple fact. I had no choice.' I will argue that it is necessary to understand the concept of culture as it was developed in the late eighteenth century to fully grasp the difference Boland makes between myth and history.
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