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ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE ON THE LAUNCH OF “IRISH TOWNLANDS” AT NUI MAYNOOTH

ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE ON THE LAUNCH OF “IRISH TOWNLANDS” AT NUI MAYNOOTH ON FRIDAY 20 MARCH 1998

As a child I was fascinated that a letter addressed to my grandfather simply at Caraward, Carrick-on-Shannon would have no difficulty finding him. My cousins two fields away lived at Boher, Carrick-on-Shannon – townlands marked and differentiated by hedges and ditches – each name a careful, protective testimony to the uniqueness of each place and the individuals in it. My own long city address lacked the resonances of memory, history and self-conscious identity. Somehow today’s identifying tag of postcode BT34 3BG doesn’t carry the same deep sense of place!

Over the last six or seven months - especially during the election campaign - I have been through every county in Ireland and travelled many a road and laneway, meeting people in their own place, be it townland, village, town or city community. You very quickly become aware of the strong attachments and loyalties to place – of the bonds that exist between people and where they come from – of the influence that ‘place’ has on people - the sense of identity that people cling to and have pride in.

In the Ireland of today, taking its place among the modern economies of the world, that sense of identity takes on a new significance. In a way, it is an antidote to globalisation and standardisation – a realisation that our own place is unique – that neither it nor the people in it can be standardised or made to conform to some theoretical model. Each place has its own characteristics – its own robust personality.

Some of our great writers have drawn on their “own place” for inspiration. I am reminded of the words of Patrick Kavanagh, from his poem ‘Shancoduff’, the first poem I taught my own children because of its deep well of love for his own landscape.

 

“My hills hoard the bright shillings of March

While the sun searches in every pocket.

They are my Alps and I have climbed the Matterhorn

With a sheaf of hay for three perishing calves

In the field under the Big Forth of Rocksavage”

 

And Paul Durcan in his poem ‘Going Home to Mayo, Winter 1949’ describes travelling with his father to Mayo,

 

“Each town we passed through was another milestone

And their names were magic passwords into eternity”

 

The sense of ‘home’ passes from generation to generation. Again, Paul speaks of

 

“The village of Turlough in the heartland of Mayo,

And my father’s mother’s house, all oil-lamps and

women”

 

Haven’t we all seen the parked coaches in Dublin’s Nassau Street awaiting the return of the many Irish American tourists who, with the smallest scrap of information – a surname from a headstone – a vague recollection of an aged or dead relative’s name – search for a clue to their origin in the Chief Herald’s Office on Kildare Street. And when their search turns up a name, a townland – perhaps a place which they might never get a chance to see – their palpable joy at finally knowing that they belong is immeasurable. They have found their own place. It has a name and the name carries a history.

The collection of essays that I’m launching today, focuses on nine townlands in different places across Ireland. While each essay reflects the particular interest of its author they are fascinating cross sections of history that allow us to examine the line of time through the generations that touched or were touched by those places. For those who know the locations, they will put flesh and blood onto the skeleton of their own history – they will fill in the detail on the sketch of family and community. They are fortunate to have such a marvellous resource – for they learn not just facts and figures but are given intimate clues about the forces that shaped their own lives.

For people who have an interest in or who are studying Irish history – who want and need to get a fuller, three-dimensional view of that history – of the lives and livelihoods of people – of the impact of political and social developments – of landlords, of famine, of emigration – these essays will prove an invaluable source of information.

The essays, as the introduction tells us, look at the topographies, the social structures, origins and the histories of communities in a selection of townlands from different parts of the country – covering coastal and inland regions. Importantly, the essays are concerned more with the “diversity of historical experience” of the townlands, than with their origin or significance as “territorial units”. I commend the authors for their scholarship and research and I recommend the book of essays as essential reading for anybody who wants to get behind the headlines – to look at the back of the big picture – to see how communities survived in the changing fortunes of our history. As the book says ‘townlands – because of their size, their association with family and with home place remain the most intimate and enduring of land divisions’. It is precisely that association, the value it places on the day to day lives and struggles of each atomised individual and his or her context which makes townlands such a precious resource. The authors are to be congratulated for making sure our comprehension of our own history is rich in knowledge of the complex patchwork of small places from which we came.