Below are some quotes from the above essay, the full title of which is 'That Quintessential Repository of Collective Memory': Identity, Locality and Townland in Northern Ireland, by Bryonie Reid, which features in Sense of Place: Sense of Time, Ashgate, 2005
"These small pragmatic units are redolent of an attachment to place which is both crumbling and pertrifying in the wake of increasing homogenisation", p53.
'the townland is at the heart of rural thought...the loss will be not only of sonorous beauty and historical sense but also a corruption of the intimate relationship between rural people and the land that surrounds them (McCool, 1993, p8 - quoted in the above, p53)
"a townland is an area, it is not a long thing called a road", p54
"It could be argued that a similar process is occurring in the imposition of linear geography over an already existing spatial mode or orientation; this thick space entails the possibility of resistence to reoganisation from above, as thoroughly enmeshed as it has been with human life and death", p55
"Rooted and tangled memories linger in local places, shaping identity and belonging; perhaps obscured, tarnished through disuse or grief, but awaiting careful excavation, examination and reinstatement in the record of what has gone before" p58
Townland names could be seen as the "index cards upon which memories were stored", p57
Hi i just stumbled across this while looking for a reference...what book by mccool is this from? - "the townland is at the heart of rural thought...the loss will be not only of sonorous beauty and historical sense but also a corruption of the intimate relationship between rural people and the land that surrounds them." And are the other quotes from the sense of place;sense of time book?
ReplyDeleteRiver Modelling A very awesome blog post. We are really grateful for your blog post. You will find a lot of approaches after visiting your post.
ReplyDelete