The poems in the collection are generally focused on the role of the poet and their relationship to history and politics but, more specifically, are also a platform through which Heaney can examine his own complex relationship with the sectarian violence of The Troubles in Northern Ireland (including his decision to move his family out of the north to the Republic of Ireland in 1972). In an interview collected in "Stepping Stones" Heaney describes the driving force behind his writing of the long poem "Station Island": "I needed to butt my way through a blockage, a pile-up of hampering stuff, everything that had gathered up inside me because of the way I was both in an out of the Northern Ireland situation. I wasn't actively involved, yet I felt dragged upon and put upon by it." Earlier, in the same interview, he says that for him "Station Island" "was more like an examination of conscience than a confession. A kind of inner courtroom, as dramatic as it was confessional. It was written, sure enough, to release an inner pressure. But it was also set up so that different voices could speak and different weights get lifted."