"In this timely and provocative collection, critical debates about desire and its discontents have at last caught up with the rapidly changing experience of gender and sexuality in modern Ireland. Both historically grounded and theoretically sophisticated, the essays draw on a wide range of disciplines and intellectual positions which challenge traditional and revisionist stereotypes alike. The originality of the work not only breaks new ground in Irish studies, but also makes a major contribution to the expanding literature on gender, place, and nation in recent post-colonial studies."—Luke Gibbons, Author of Transformations in Irish Culture