In line with a major tendency in post-colonial criticism, this study assumes the value of cultural and historical studies but also makes use of notions of difference derived from the work of Derrida. Irish writing, including the poetry of Yeats, is increasingly seen in a post-colonial perspective. In the case of Yeats, this has meant coming to terms with the implications of his Anglo-Irish Protestant background. This led to his sense of alienation from unity with Ireland and its ancient traditions. But it also led to a compensatory drive towards a revival of Irish culture which Yeats believed an Anglo-Irish Protestant was especially qualified to create. This study shows how Yeats moves from an identification with Ireland in his early work, through a period in which he re-emphasises his Anglo-Irish inheritance and its difference from that of Catholics, to a new sense of unity in his later work, founded on the belief that the Gaelic and Anglo-Irish aristocracies were fundamentally at one. Effects of d