This study aims to develop new perspectives on as yet undiscovered layers of meaning in one of the Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll’s most prominent books, the Irish Journal, which is usually considered a ‘mere travel account’ or simply a critical mirror image of West Germany in the 1950s. The first chapter presents an overview and a critical discussion of reviews as well as the scientific reception the Irish Journal has received since its publication in 1957. It also gives a basic outline of how the text’s strategy of intensification or mushrooming of meaning can be used to uncover complex and multi-layered literary potential. One of these layers is the text’s intertextual tendencies and potential, which, in chapter two, are analysed with special consideration given to a typology developed by Manfred Pfister, which deals with different forms of intertextuality in travel literature. The third chapter goes beyond the limits of travel literature and shows how a concept of intertextuality already explored in one of Böll’s early theoretical writings is implemented in the Irish Journal. The fourth chapter analyses different stylistic motifs and literary strategies that are employed in the text and that contribute to the book’s complexity. The fifth and last chapter uses the results of the previous chapters to re-evaluate the thematic aspects of how history is presented and which role religion plays in the Irish Journal. The overall result of this study is that Böll’s Irish Journal, far from being a simple travel account, employs a wide range of literary strategies to both intensify the text’s meaning but also to generate complex layers of meaning.