Landscape and Society in Contemporary Ireland - by Brendan McGrath (Hardcover)

About the Book

Nearby, over several days, a landowner, with the help of a JCB, razed level a limestone outcrop and its hazel thicket to make way for a brand new field that was topped off with truck-loads of imported soil. Meanwhile, on the other sideof the Burren an ugly array of signage, most of it unauthorised, became the backdrop for another 'welcome' sign. These various bits of new development in the last dozen years are unexceptional in themselves. But they drew my attention because of their proximity to that simple and unequivocal declaration of landscape protection. The contrast between the public message and what was happening around the signs is just one illustration of the unsatisfactory relationship that exists between contemporary Irish society and the places that it inhabits. This book is an examination of that relationship. The book is about both special places like the Burren and the everyday landscape experience. My aim is to give an account of contemporary Irish landscape and to describe and to explain how and why it has changed over the last forty years.

Book Synopsis

Ireland stands out as a country which has landscapes that are admired the world over and a society that is ill at ease with the places it inhabits. Public debates about landscape in Ireland may hold a promise of an easily won consensus but this rarely happens. There have been numerous bitter landscape disputes in recent decades, leading one visiting anthropologist to describe the Irish countryside as "a perennial site of struggle".



This book, which is written by a professional planner, is an account of that era of change and conflict, covering not just the conflicts that make the headlines but also the day-to-day tensions within the Irish planning system. At the outset, the book outlines the country's outstanding landscape heritage. Changes to that heritage are then explored from different perspectives, with landscape viewed as commodity and symbol and as an expression of beauty. Three especially contentious types of development are described in detail; wind farms, rural housing and the designation of countryside for public recreation and enjoyment. To aid the analysis, the recent stories of a handful of places are told in some detail. These are the Burren in Clare, Erris in Mayo, Woodstock in Kilkenny, the Old Head of Kinsale in Cork and Howth in Dublin.