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Irish Archaeological Research Issue 2 Feb 2012 In terms of the landscape, and according to the ideologies of people who live in the countryside, a distributed settlement pattern is the traditional approach. Two centuries ago, more people lived in the Irish countryside than do so now. It therefore seems doubtful that a move towards centralised settlement is the appropriate answer for the peoples and landscapes of rural areas. Return of the Vernacular This simplistic standpoint does not acknowledge a number of factors that also influence building in the countryside; falling household sizes, vacant properties, holiday homes and changes in the agricultural economy all play a prominent role in debates over the future of countryside housing. Less debated, however, is the potential role of traditional vernacular buildings in halting or reversing the decline in countryside quality that newly‐built single dwellings have threatened. As I discussed last time, many of these buildings still exist in the landscape; indeed many are abandoned but structurally sound. Their aesthetic qualities are often held in high‐regard. Indeed, a paradox exists with regards to the buildings. On one hand, they are seen as an intrinsic part of the landscape; they appear on postcards, television adverts and in tourists’ brochures. However, they are also deemed as old and backward structures by many. This perhaps reflects a folk memory of the social and economic conditions during the times when cottages were built (from the seventeenth to mid‐nineteenth centuries) which were, by modern standards, very poor indeed. Social inequality was enormous, and the rural poor were oppressed by their employers and landlords. Travellers to Ireland widely reported this, and they and other outside commentators could not agree whether this was the fault of the ruling aristocracy, or a natural deficiency in the Irish peasants themselves. And so, haunted by a fear of poverty and in the name of progress, many vernacular buildings have been replaced with more modern houses. These buildings are often greatly compromised architecturally as regulations insist on a general bungalow format that is 33 supposed to recall the vernacular cottage. However, the scale and siting of these new buildings is often vastly at odds with any indigenous approach. Suburban prototypes, large floor plans and alien building materials all enable these buildings to exist without any real reference to traditional building paradigms. Most damaging of all is the power of hydraulic earth‐moving machinery, which allows for the immediate landscape to be remodelled according to the whims of fancy; nowadays houses may be sited virtually anywhere, despite how insensitive a chosen location may be in the context of its surroundings. This is strongly at odds with the benefits of a traditional approach to housing. As Professor E. Eystn Evans wrote, in his introduction to the 1978 edition of Mourne Country: “...the very poverty which restricted the importation of ‘foreign’ building materials resulted in an ecological rightness in the houses and buildings of the countryside, which are generally carefully sited, low‐built, small‐windowed and neatly trimmed to meet the sweep of wind and weather.” At a time when “ecological rightness” has assumed a new importance around the world, it would perhaps be timely to look at traditional buildings more closely when making decisions about housing in the countryside. It is indeed curious that, in Northern Ireland, the removal of many old houses was actually funded by generous housing executive grants, as part of schemes to improve standards in rural housing. Unfortunately the motives behind replacing dwellings can seem almost whimsical. In 1998 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society held a conference on the future of rural buildings in Ulster. In the conference’s proceedings, Caroline Maguire expressed the problem succinctly: “The removal of these buildings, which may have a history of far greater complexity than a cursory inspection of their fabric reveals, is often required because they fail to meet the eight points of fitness such as the sequence of worktop/sink/worktop/cooker etc. This amounts to the wholesale clearance or removal of an entire layer of our heritage.”
Lessons in a Lost Landscape The unwritten; indeed unspoken history of rural Ireland in recent centuries does not feature prominently in discourses about Irish history and politics. Yet, as the poet Seamus Heaney points out in a number of his works, a sense of prehistory has always existed, in silence, alongside historical narratives. The countryside contains little evidence of the battles, rebellions and treaties that continue to preoccupy our constructs of Irish identity. This is in stark contrast to the landscape itself, which is vividly thronged with the physical remains of a vernacular, traditional world; a way of life that could celebrate continuity from the stone‐age to the 21st Century. Traditional things tell us about the world in a way that historical sources cannot. They should not be lost because of transient economic circumstances, fashions or a generalised non‐specific fear of the old. Buildings, and their distribution in the landscape, express people’s interactions with the environment most eloquently. As it stands, however, we must fear that the countryside is on a self‐destructive course at present. Distributed settlement may well be tradi�onal and reflected in road infrastructure―hence the way the landscape is perceived. But new buildings have had so many negative impacts on the integrity of the countryside that few could argue that they provide a sustainable answer to the demand for rural housing. The answer, to me, seems to point towards a return to traditional houses. I mean that literally; thousands of these buildings could be restored and updated for modern needs, which would be a very valuable exercise if best practices (such as reversibility and clarity) were followed. Even if this were impossible, new buildings must take many more cues from traditional building materials and practices. In doing so, we would be able to continue to celebrate the special character of the Irish landscape long into the future. In a world that valued the past unequivocally, this would be common practice. The Irish landscape is currently being ravaged by the fallout from an economic recession caused by a burst speculative property bubble. Ghost estates proliferate and unfinished or uninhabited new‐builds can be found in abundance. It is not comforting to think that even in a derelict state, traditional buildings often appear more pleasing and less obtrusive than these latter‐day constructions... alas, how dreadful will these new buildings appear to our grandchildren’s generation? Text and Figure 1 copyright Rowan McLaughlin 2012 Email: r.mclaughlin@qub.ac.uk Advertise here Your Company, Product or Service can feature here, see inside back page for details. Irish Archaeological Research Issue 2 Jan 2012 Advertise here Your Company, Product or Service can feature here, see inside back page for details. 34
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