Examines the cultural formations of Irish nationalism, and the corollary processes of decolonization, postcolonialism, modernity, and globalization, that have been instrumental in the creation of the modern Irish state.

Drawing on diverse cultural forms, and ranging across disciplinary boundaries, Nation States maps the contested cultural terrain of Irish nationalism from the Act of Union of 1800 to the present. In looking at Irish nationalism as a site of struggle, Mays examines both the myriad ways in which the nation fashions itself as the a priori ground of identity, and those processes through which nationalism engenders an ostensibly unique national identity corresponding to one and only one nation-state, the place where we always have been, and can only ever be, "at home."