Signifying Place by Sheila Gaffey

Author:Sheila Gaffey [Gaffey, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science, Earth Sciences, Geography
ISBN: 9781351149143
Google: Ap1ADwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-11-28T04:39:09+00:00

The 'real Ireland of the revivalists was a rural Ireland, a myth created by artists, intellectuals and political leaders, such as William Butler and Jack Yeats, Paul Henry, Sean Keating, George Russell, Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, who themselves were the urban based descendants of country people (Gibbons, 1996; Kiberd, 1996). Revivalist literature and opinion portrayed the rural as a romantic idyll where the traditions of true Ireland persisted, and the farmer as the moral and economic backbone of the country. In a famous radio broadcast at the height of his power, de Valera's 'rural idyll ... - "the contests of athletic youth ... the laughter of comely maidens ... the wisdom of old age in the chimney corner ..and so on' gives an indication of this romantic view (de Paor, 1979, p. 354).

The idealization of the West and the equation of rurality with true Irishness has also been a dominant theme in 20th century Irish art (Gibbons, 1996). In fact, as Duffy (1997) notes, Paul Henry's depictions of 20th century Achill's 'desolate landscapes of thatched houses and blue mountains became part of the nationalist iconography of the Free State' (p. 67). Even prior to this, rural Ireland was portrayed by most artists in terms of wild, romantic, picturesque landscapes, with little reference to the reality of social and economic conditions of the time (Brett, 1994; Duffy, 1994). As early as 1841, travel writers wrote of the romanticized landscape of the West of Ireland and the peasant as a 'valuable accessory to the landscape' (Hall and Hall, 1841 quoted in Brett, 1994, p. 123).

A sentimental, static and conservative view of rurahty was set up in opposition to modernity and informed the political ideology of the new Irish Free State. The dominance of rural themes in Irish literature continued throughout the 20th century, strengthening the cliched representation of Ireland as a rural place and feeding into the rural nostalgia which survives today (Duffy, 1997). This myth of an essentially rural Ireland in need of protection from Yeats' 'filthy modern tide' has been charged with stifling development and modernization in Ireland under de Valera's leadership (Kockel, 1995). An idealistic view of rurality existed so much so that writers such as Synge were accused of misrepresenting Irish rural life, yet those who objected to The Playboy of the Western World} in 1907 were urban people who saw rurality as their heritage and choose to view it in soft focus. When the play was shown in the West of Ireland, it was seen as unremarkable (Kiberd, 1996).

The myth of the West is not only an Irish phenomenon.

The invocation of the west as the source of heroism, mystery and romance ... is found in many different cultures under such varied names as Atlantis, Elysium, El Dorado or the English Land of Cockaigne

(Gibbons, 1996, p. 23).

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