 It refers to Station Island (also known as St. Patrick's Purgatory) on Lough Derg (Ulster) in Co. Donegal, a site of Christian pilgrimage for many centuries.During his undergraduate years at Queen's University Belfast, Heaney went on the pilgrimage several times.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).