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| 10 Nov 2007 03:42:41 pm |
 Dobhar-chu legend |
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The Dobhar-chú of Glenade Lough
The legend of the Dobhar-chú tells of a woman who killed by a beast called the Dobhar-chú at Glencar Lough at the beginning of the 18th century. Dobhar-chú or ‘water hound’ is the Irish word for otter.
Grace Connelly lived near Glenade with her husband Terence McLoghlin. When washing clothes at the lake, she was attacked and killed by a beast called the Dobhar-chú. When she failed to return home, her husband went there to look for her and found her body lying by the lakeside with the creature lying asleep on her breast. McLoghlin went home to get his dagger, then crept up on the Dobhar-chú and killed it. The dying creature cried out in agony and a similar beast sprung out of the lake and Terence fled from the valley on horseback in the direction of Sligo. It chased him cross country as far as Cashelgarron, just north of Drumcliffe. Terence’s horse became exhausted from the chase so he laid his horse across the entrance of a stone cashel to protect himself. The avenging Dobhar-chú is described as having a single horn in the centre of its forehead and it pierced the body of the horse with it. McLoghlin seized this opportunity to kill the creature by stabbing it through its heart.
The true origin of the story is unclear but a remarkable gravestone testifies to the death of Grace, and depicts a dog-like animal being killed. Four miles (6.5km) south of the village of Kinlough, beside the road between Kinlough and Manorhamilton is the Conwell Cemetery at Glenade. Within this cemetery, just off centre but difficult to locate, is a recumbent gravestone of sandstone about 1.4m by 0.5m. On the top right hand corner is an image of a dog-like creature with its head turned backwards and a human right hand is depicted to the right of the beast holding a weapon which has entered the base of the neck. Barely legible on the tomb stone are the words “______ __ODY OF GRACE CONN/Y WIFE TO TER MACLOGHLIN WHO DYD 7BER THE 24TH ANN DMI MDCCXXII”. The date of the gravestone is September 24, 1722, a time that fits in well with the folklore account of Grace’s death. |
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Category : culture
| By : Sam |  Comments [51] |  Trackbacks [0] |
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| 10 Nov 2007 03:41:03 pm |
| Monday trip |
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Been under the weather with mad flu thing so this is first time putting anything up. Iron works sounds good but I must admit I know little about the place. If anyone wants we can also do Kings Mt like Sean mentioned. The route up Swiss Valley has a big PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESSPASING sign that was not there last time I went up, so the easiest route is the forest road beside Glencar waterfall, that has no unwelcoming signs. To get to the old mine works up there it is just over an hour, depending on fitness levels! I don't know if there is a minibus or car share method of moving around, but if there is a monibus we could come down a different route, on the NE corner of Benbulben, then go to Horseshoe to old byrite mill and have a look at some of the sluices, then the Cliffs of Annacoona, then the Conwell graveyard and on to Manor.
See other blog on Conwell |
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Category : General
| By : Sam | Comments [34] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 09 Nov 2007 03:48:38 pm |
| Site Vistits |
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Hi everybody
I propose we start with creevalea Iron works and meet in Manorhamilton at 10 am or at the works at 11am on Monday.
(unfortunatly I have 9am architects appoint in Sligo. and cannot change.)
If raining we can also go onto ballinamore county library and meet the head librarian Sean O'Sullivan
LOCAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT WWWLEITRIMLIBRARY.IE/LOCALSTUDIES.
local collections
If not this maybe a walk up to kings mountain- Will speak to Sam about this.
Best Regards
Sean |
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Category : General
| By : admin | Comments [53] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 09 Nov 2007 10:36:14 am |
| Checking In |
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Hi everyone,
Just checking in with you all. I'm set to miss some of the upcoming meetings so I wanted to contribute some thoughts to the blog and keep you all up to speed with what I'm looking at. How is everyone else's research going?
My initial proposal focused on migration, particularly with a view to investigating ideas of utopianism and alternative living connected with people who have moved here, especially with the German diaspora. This is something I will probably develop for my 'own' work after Christmas, I haven't had enough time to build a framework for interviewing people yet. I had also mentioned the Ballroom of Romance as a specific site of interest/ nostalgia, and this is a place/ idea I'm still hoping to get around to investigating.
For the initial research outcomes, I'm looking at representations of Leitrim elsewhere, specifically a series of newspaper columns written by Michael Harding for the Irish Times (and another woman who previously lived in Manorhamilton) and the Bord Fálte 'Lovely Leitrim' films. I'm particularly interested in the newspaper columns written by Dublin types trying to live here, because they represent a very curious relationship between 'outsider' and attempted 'insider'. From anecdotes I have heard about the female writer, the articles eventually soured her relationship with the locality and she had to move elsewhere. From my perspective, this also relates to ideas of the artist as a kind of pseudo-ethnographer/ anthropologist, and the attendant risks of such ventures.
For those interested, Gareth and I have an exhibition of our collaborative work opening at Pallas Contemporary Projects next Friday: www.pallasprojects.org/
And my own personal blog is at www.selfinterestandsympathy.wordpress.com
Will post some photos soon! |
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Category : General
| By : Sarah | Comments [31] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 06 Nov 2007 08:25:59 pm |
| Just got my way in |
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Hi everyone
The Iron Works sounds good to me.
The main reason for this message is to check out this site. |
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Category : General
| By : Malcolm | Comments [48] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 04 Nov 2007 12:43:00 pm |
| Site visits |
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I propose Creevelea Iron Works as an interesting location for a group visit. I have been up there wandering around a little and would love to hear about other peoples impressions of the space/ any extra historical information you might know.
(Anna- you mentioned that you have already done some research into Creevelea. it would be great if you could post some of that up so we could have a read before the visit?Thanks!)
See you all again soon,
Elaine. |
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Category : archeology
| By : admin | Comments [32] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 01 Nov 2007 04:24:41 pm |
| Image Uploading |
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Hi All !
Eoin has devoped a script which allows for the uploading of images to the Blog homepage ..
Just follow these steps,
1. From the home page, click on ADMIN, then click on the TOOLS tab.
2. Here you click BROWSE to locate your image and once located, click UPLOAD
3. Now your file will be featured on the file name list
4. Click on the file
5. Now Highlight the URL address bar @ the top of the web page and copy it (CTRL + ALT +C)
6.Like normal go to NEW POST where you would normally upload text.
7. Under BBcode you will see a series of tabs eg( Quote, Code, ol=a, li..) etc
8. Click the IMG tab once and in the message area you should see [img]
9. Now after [img] right click and paste the address you copied in step 5.
The message should for example read something like this:
[img]http://newsitesnewfields.com/blogs/blog/files/fulllogo.gif
10. now finally you must close this by clicking Img* a second time and your link should read similar to below:
[img]http://newsitesnewfields.com/blogs/blog/files/fulllogo.gif [/img]
11. now this enables you to upload text and images in the same post!
GOOD LUCK!
if any one has any questions or wants to arrange a meeting to do a demo of this in person feel free to call the office @ 071 98 55750
Alma |
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Category : mmdesign
| By : admin | Comments [257] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 01 Nov 2007 03:55:28 pm |
| still walking |
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Thinking about the removal from official use of townland names in Northern Ireland in the 1970s led me to think about the different senses of place garnered through walking and driving. During the debate following the county councils’ decision to accede to the Post Office’s request to instate house numbers, road names and post codes in Northern Ireland, the Federation for Ulster Local Studies referred to ‘the pattern of knowledge associated with the townland system’, a subtle delineation of the issues in spatial versus linear terms, where ‘spatial’ connotes abundance of detail and ‘linear’ connotes sparsity. The objections voiced in varied ways by those involved with the Townlands Campaign seem to extend far beneath the innocuous surfaces of replacing one system of rural addressing with another, more administratively convenient one. I think what is being contested is, at some levels, the meaning of place. As Brian Turner puts it in the most recent publication associated with the Campaign:
we intend to assert a view of our landscapes as spaces which give us life, rather than as blanknesses to be crossed in getting to somewhere else.
As road names become the principal identifying element of place in rural areas, the underlying intricate network of spatial identification fades from use and view; from a rich conglomeration of meaningful spaces, the countryside turns into an undifferentiated surface crossed by lines which merely facilitate travel through, rather than engagement with, places. Although I am well aware of the social necessity for cars in rural Ireland, the disconnection with the details of place entailed by car travel arguably is problematic. Patrick Loughrey writes:
the network of townlands fitted into the more pedestrian local world up to the 1950s and 60s, when people cycled or walked, or plodded on horse cart through the landscape. The local geography of townland matched such a local scale of movement . . . Nowadays cars sweep past and have little connection with the texture of this local world.
Mourning for a localised pedestrian world made obsolete by car travel may be both foolishly nostalgic and futile. However, what seems to be an old-fashioned and impractical desire for fewer cars and more pedestrians on roads is given contemporary resonance in the United States, where concerns are being voiced over the phasing out of the very possibility of walking. Rebecca Solnit warns:
what was once public space is designed to accommodate the privacy of automobiles; malls replace main streets; streets have no sidewalks; buildings are entered through their garages; city halls have no plazas . . . Fear has created a whole style of architecture and urban design, notably in southern California, where to be a pedestrian is to be under suspicion in many of the subdivisions and gated “communities”.
Writing of a friend whose vehicle was stolen, Solnit offers a counterpoint to the grim situation outlined above:
there was a joy, she said, to finding that her body was adequate to get her where she was going, and it was a gift to develop a more tangible, concrete relationship to her neighborhood and its residents. We talked about the more stately sense of time one has afoot . . . where things must be planned and scheduled beforehand . . . and about the sense of place that can only be gained on foot . . . On foot everything stays connected.
These reflections arose in urban and suburban contexts, and the sense of place and community discovered by Solnit in the act of walking is closely tied to modest ambitions and needs for everyday travel which may be feasible only in towns and cities. The possibility of living and making a living in rural Leitrim depends almost entirely on access to a car. However, it is worth considering and valuing the relationship developed through a walking knowledge of place, which encourages close attention to the textures and details of any given locality. The questions of how and why walking takes place, and how and whether more walking should be encouraged, remain.
REFERENCES:
Federation for Ulster Local Studies, ‘Federation News: Secretary’s Report 1976-1977’, pp23-26 in Ulster Local Studies, vol.3 no.1, November 1977, p24;
Brian Turner, ‘Introduction’, pp5-7 in Brian Turner (ed.) The Heart’s Townland: Marking Boundaries in Ulster, Downpatrick, Ulster Local History Trust in association with the Cavan-Monaghan Rural Development Co-operative Society, 2004, p5;
Patrick Loughrey, ‘The Heart’s Townland’, pp9-17 in Turner (ed.) The Heart’s Townland, p22;
Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: a History of Walking, New York, Viking, 2000, pp11 and 9. |
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Category : walking
| By : Bryonie | Comments [36] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 29 Oct 2007 05:33:57 pm |
| walking |
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| For a number of years I have been thinking about walking as a means of acquainting oneself with place in physically specific ways. Walking as a meditative and exploratory practice engages the body and the mind, and offers a reminder of the physical ‘thereness’ of landforms, waterways, flora and fauna, implicitly negating a wholly abstract understanding of place as text. The tangibility of the environment in which one walks, including the feel of the surfaces under the feet, wind, rain, sunshine and the scents of earth, grass, leaves, flowers or water encourage awareness both of the body itself and the otherness of what may be termed landscape, which manifests itself both bluntly and subtly. Bodily responses to the activity of walking, ranging from sensuous pleasure to tiredness, will affect the intellectual and emotional experience of walking and of the surrounding landscape; in this way, landscape asserts itself as an active partner in the process of human engagement with it and understanding of it. |
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Category : walking
| By : Bryonie | Comments [34] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 24 Oct 2007 10:29:26 am |
| NSNF - Farming ECI |
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NSNF - Farming ECI
The management of livestock, especially cattle, was the primary preoccupation of farmers in Early Christian Ireland. Hay seems not to have been commonly made (suggestive of warmer winters – ds). Cattle appear to have been outwinterd, involving some form of transhumance or booleying, as it is more commonly known in Ireland.
The practice of moving cattle and other livestock to summer grazing had a number of important economic benefits. As well as protecting crops from damage from livestock, it allowed some home pastures to be closed off to conserve grass for winter feeding. It may also have been seen as essential, as otherwise the animals could become prone to disease owing to the continual use of local water (current all year round stocking of sheep cause of water condemnation for e-coli in all local water systems – ds).
Milk production was the principal element of the farming systems. Dairying and dairy products, including cream, butter, buttermilk and various cheeses, are well attested to in ECI. Conversely, there are few references to beef cattle in the period. Sheep-rearing was widely practiced. Pigs were kept for their meat and lard; pork was traditionally used for feasting. |
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Category : culture
| By : David | Comments [69] | Trackbacks [0] |
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