The Map of Connections at the Dock

Right now a couple of my maps are being exhibited at The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim. The Map of Connections has been painted onto a large wall, it is the first thing you see as you enter the gallery. Images of each individual connection are projected beside the map, running in a looped slide show. The skilled job of rendering the map was put in the hands of John O'Hara. He is a mural-painter and sign-writer and also works for the Ordnance Survey.



So, all in all, John had the prefect skill set for the task. I am delighted with how the map has turned out. The Map of Connections has been exhibited in various ways over the last few years but this is by far the most handsome.



First, John outlined every part of the map, using pencils of the corresponding colours. The font used was Garamond.


Then everything was painstakingly filled in.



The finished map is about four metres tall.



The image above is Manus McManus installing another part of the show. It is a photo journal of my journey along the border from Lough Foyle to Carlingford Lough.



A new version of The Map of Watchful Architecture is also in the exhibition. It has not so radically evolved since the last version, I've just added lighthouses. Canoeing by some lighthouses in Carlingford Lough last year, I realised that they belong in any collection of "watchful" structures.

The show runs until the end of August.

To accompany the exhibition, I brought a group of people on a hike along a nearby stretch of the border. One participant says a few words about it here. Kindly, he does not mention how I got us lost for a while.

Thank you to John O'Hara and everyone at The Dock who helped put the show together, Claire, Martin, Alice and Manus.

Text Message Map

Earlier this year the artist Susan Lynch walked from Malin Head, Co. Donegal, to Mizen Head, Co. Cork. She recorded her journey in various ways and some were recently on view in PS squared, Belfast. Walking as artistic practice is not a new idea but one thing makes this project different. She often walked with company of one sort or another, her experience seems to have been more about connection than isolation.

Richard Long's stone circle on Aran Mor, Co. Galway.

More usually artists take on landscapes alone, perhaps seeking the singular quality of a spiritual or meditative experience. The artist Richard Long, for example, always walked alone. He would leave stone circles in his wake, the very form of which seem to reinforce the isolated, inward-looking, mode of his creative process. The walk as ritual. Werner Herzog, in a journey recounted in Of Walking in Ice, walked weeks by himself. He was sometimes overwhelmed by loneliness yet it is impossible to imagine he would have done it any other way. My own walks along the Irish border were always done without company. After three or four days and nights by myself I would return to Belfast starry-eyed and socially awkward (even more than usual). Yet, I would have considered walking alone necessary to having an authentic experience of the borderland. I now find it difficult to justify that notion. What harm if I had had another person's influence to spice up the experience? No harm, there may even have been gains.

The poets Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts teamed up to explore peripheral spaces for their rich and enjoyable book Edgelands. Walker/writer Iain Sinclair also bucks the trend of walking unaccompanied. He brings pals and sometimes his wife on his explorations.

During her journey, Susan Lynch stayed with people every night, members of her family walked sections with her and she was interviewed by local radio along the way. She was also in near-constant text message communication with many people, including her mother. It was print-outs of these text messages that formed the basis of her show, ‘A Malin Head to Mizen Head Approach.’ They were pinned up along wall drawings of the routes she traveled.

This map recounts the journey from Pettigo, Co. Donegal to Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh and on to Clones, Co. Monahagan.

Heading south out of Pettigo.

In Clones.

Lynch's maps have a warmth about them. They are not the trails beaten by solitary types, they are the transcripts of a walk supported all the way by a friendly network. In the exhibition notes the artist emphasizes connections and friendship over personal revelation or meditation. She mentions aiming for the nightly beacon of a glowing window, the house where she would pass the night. "The comfort of the light from each B&B, arrival was imminent, warmth and generosity was certain.” The idea of always moving towards a light takes fullest form when Lynch realises that for the whole journey she was constantly moving towards one big light, the lighthouse at Mizen head.

Fictional Ulster: Expanding

For a new map, I am collecting the names of fictitious sites in Ulster, places invented by writers and artists over the years. I am using this pin board map (pictured below) to locate the names and to draw attention to my project. It is installed in the Seamus Heaney Centre, Belfast.

I am also interested in fictitious sites from plays and films but so far most I have found or being sent are from books. They include (placename followed by the author's name):

'Greywater', - Malachy Doyle
'Drumnay', - Patrick Kavanagh
'Ballygullion', - Lynn Doyle
'Carn', - Patrick McCabe
'Tyreelin', - Patrick McCabe
'Tumdrum', - Ian Samson
'Rathard', - Sam Hanna Bell
'Ballycarnamaghery', - JC Pedlow
'Aghnascreeby', - Mat Mulcaghy
'Crossmaheart', - Colin Bateman
'Ballybucklebo', - Patrick Taylor
'Kiltarragh', - Martin Waddell
'Ballyutogue', - Leon Uris
'Puckoon', - Spike Milligan
'Port na Rón', - Erin Hart
'Butlershill', - Shane McConnaughton
'Tailorstown', - Christina McKenna

Please get in touch if you know of any others.

McCabe Country

I am making a map of Ulster's fictional sites, places invented by writers and artists down through the years. It will be called Fictional Ulster.

One writer who invents localities is Patrick McCabe. His novels are set in the south of Ireland but I am sure at least a few of his fictitious towns will go on the map as they will be in Monaghan or Cavan. Both these counties are in the Republic of Ireland but also among the nine counties of Ulster. They are counties that, accurately or not, McCabe's novels have become associated with. I have read that the town of Carn - setting of this 1989 novel of the same name - is based on Monaghan's Clones, McCabe's hometown. Tyreelin, the setting of Breakfast on Pluto (2001) is described as a border town so it may be reasonable to place it in Monaghan too, or in Cavan.

Where is Barntrosna? Where is Scotsfield?

Online can be found a Guardian interview with McCabe from 2003 where McCabe expresses annoyance that he had become associated with County Silgo.

Journalists always come over and end up writing all this stuff about Sligo and its relevance to my work. But Sligo has absolutely nothing to do with my work. There is no mention of the sea in my work, and very little of the terrain that you find out here. It just so happens that I've lived in Sligo for the past few years, but that's the extent of it.

This would be unsurprising to anyone who has read McCabe and also knows Ireland. His novels have the feel of the midlands, landlocked and boggy. They evoke a oppressive landscape of close horizons, none of his characters get the relief of resting their eyes on the far Atlantic. His characters often suffer personal limitations that seems reenforced by their closed geography, bitterness, small-mindedness.

Names of fictitious sites in McCabe's work include: Carn, Tyreelin, Cullymore, Scotsfield and Barntrosna. There could well be more. I will have to get reading McCabe's back list.

Belfast Radius

This map shows the trail left by participants from the Art in Public course at the University of Ulster. Doing some “walking as research”, they set of to walk a circular route. The walkers kept their circle close to a one mile radius, using Catalyst Arts, near Queen Street in the city centre, as the axis point.

They report: "This circumferential journey intersects a wide variety of city neighbourhoods, ranging from Queens University quarter in the south, west via Donegal Rd. to the Falls and Shankill, intersecting the Crumlin and Antrim Roads in the north of the city, through the docklands and the Short Strand before completing the circuit by way of Ravenhill Road and Ormeau Park."

Fictional Ulster: In Development

Ballybeg, the fictitious setting for Brian Friel’s plays, is more famous than most real villages in Ulster. Despite not existing, the village has a kind of geographic life. This is part of what the map Fictional Ulster is about. Fictional Ulster will locate and chart Ulster’s fictional places - places invented by writers down through the years.

The map is made from thick pieces of cork. It does not include County Cork, I mention this as it has confused some people.

So far, I’ve got a dozen or so localities for the map. A few, I’ve come up with myself. Others were contributed by members of the public, via this blog or by email. Some were contributed via a pin board map that I have installed in the Seamus Heaney Centre, Belfast. I have invited staff, students and visitors to the centre to pin the places directly where they think they belong.

Tumdrum is in North Antrim, it is the setting of Ian Sansom's Mobile Library series.

Fictional sites located so far include: Tumdrum, Buggleskelly, Weirtown, Newtonhamilton, Carn, Puckoon, Ballycarnamaghery and Belfast's Eureka Street.

Thank you to everyone who has helped.

Introducing Fictional Ulster

So far I have made three maps of Ireland’s border. Now I am beginning a new project, this time covering the nine counties of Ulster. Fictional Ulster will locate and chart Ulster’s fictional places, places created by writers and artists down through the years. I hope the map will be fun and intriguing and that it also might offer an insight on how we see ourselves and how others see us. In addition the map may reveal themes in the naming and placement of fictional sites in Ulster.


Where is Ballybeg? Where is Ballycarnamaghery?

Mining the entire history of Ulster literature is too big a task for one person. I welcome contributions from anyone who has knowledge of such fictional places. Perhaps you recall one from a book you’ve read or a film you have seen? Please email me or comment on this blog. The places could be from any art form. Movies and plays as well as books, in or out-of-print. The sites could be towns, rivers, forests, estates, streets, mountains or any other sort of locality.

I’d also like to hear your views on the exact location of sites. Where exactly, for example, is the setting of Brian Friel’s plays, Ballybeg? Where is the setting of the 1937 comedy film ‘Oh, Mister Porter’, Buggleskelly?


Messing about in a border train station called Buggleskelly. Oh, Mr Porter, 1937.

In Belfast, I am attempting to tap the knowledge of the Seamus Heaney Centre to gather the elements for this map. I have made a pin board map of Ulster, cutting each county from a thick piece of cork to produce a wall map a metre and a half wide. I will be installing it in the Seamus Heaney Centre this week and inviting students, staff and visitors to pin up their suggestions directly to the map.

I will report on the progress of Fictional Ulster on this blog in the oncoming months.