Seamus Heaney explores many aspects of Irish history through his poetry and is able to express his thoughts and attitudes towards historical issues by using various poetic techniques such as imagery, metaphors, title and structure. "Punishment" and "The Mud Vision" is two of Heaney's poems which can be seen to reflect on Ireland's cultural issues of the past. "Punishment" puts the reader in an imaginative position of watching a young girl being tarred and drowned for having commit adultery. Heaney endorses his view of sympathy and his feelings of immorality towards the issues. Heaney's morality on the issues is due to his cultural background and also influences of the novel The Bog People by P.V. Glob, an archeologist who unearthed the remains of these people in 1969. However, the reader gains an understanding that although Heaney may pity the bog women; he admits to understanding the `tribal intimate...