Hanging Mapping Alternative Ulster

Thank you to everyone in the Market Place gallery, Armagh, for making the show look so great. It will open tomorrow and run for five weeks.

The Rule of the Land

So, The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland's Border will be published by Faber & Faber at the beginning of Feburary 2017. It is in part the story of Ireland’s border and a portrait of its landscape and people. It is also about reading the power dynamics in a landscape. Almost any landscape has these, but Ireland's border is particularly loaded with claims and counterclaims.

First this three-hundred-mile line demarcated counties, then countries and will next be the frontier of the European Union. It was striking how little Ireland was discussed in the lead-up to the UK referendum on EU membership. You might have thought the border between the UK and the EU was going to be the English Channel. But it won’t be, it’s here, and it’s as thin as wire.

The Rule of the Land explores the borderland during a fragile moment, before an uncertain future.

New Maps, New Prints

Giclée prints are a kind of inkjet print that use fade-resistant, pigment-based archival inks. I'm using the process for the first edition of Fictional Ulster and version 3.1 of The Map of Connections. The difference is clearest in the photographs on The Map of Connections. The greens are rich and deep.

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The Map of Connections is 60 x 85 cm. Fictional Ulster is 50 x 70 cm. They are both editions of fifty.

Charting the Border on the Radio

My BBC Radio 4 documentary is still available to listen to online. It is about Ireland's border and The Map of Connections.

The progamme was originally broadcast at the end of June

Thank you to the producer, Rachel Hooper, and to Paddy Bloomer who canoed part of the Erne system with me for the recording. Thanks also to all the border citizens we meet along the way.

These photos illustrate parts of the show.

Armagh

On the Erne with Paddy Bloomer

Erne system connection

At the show's last connection, Londonderry/Donegal.

The Map of Connections 3.1

I've put the latest version of The Map of Connections in the Mapping Alternative Ulster show. It is one of my maps of Ireland's border. I have charted on it unofficial border crossings, paths, stiles, gates, footbridges, anything not found on other maps. Most are humble things in themselves but, all together, they seemed to add up to some kind of statement about human irrepressibility. There are 77 connections charted in this version.

It is 60 by 85 centimetres.

The show runs until June 22nd.

Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography

I am delighted that The Map of Connections has been included in Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography by Colin Graham. This is a substantial and authoritative publication which, interestingly, looks at both gallery photography and journalistic work from Belfast archives.

There will be a public lecture by publication's author on 7 June from 12noon to 1pm in the MAC, Belfast. Many photographs featured in the book are currently on show there.

The book was published this month.

I like Graham's reading of The Map of Connections. He wonders if the border's connection points might be its "truest existence". That a place might be best seen through its contradictions was something I often considered when developing the map.

See The Map of Connections here. This page also features other maps I have created.

In Carrick-on-Shannon

Two my maps are being exhibited at The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim. They will be there for a few more days only. The Map of Connections has been painted onto a large wall at the top of the gallery's central staircase.

I introduced the map on the opening night of the exhibition.

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.

Maps on Walls

The Map of Connections 3.0 is an edition of 15. Number one of the edition is currently on show in the Royal Ulster Academy’s annual show. The exhibition is taking place in the Ulster Museum, Belfast, and will run until the 14th of November.


At the RUA show, 2010. My map has a whole wall to itself. It's a rather narrow wall though.

Number two of that edition and two more of my maps, The Map of Encounters 2.0 (1/15) and The Map of Watchful Architecture 1.0 (12/40), were recently purchased by the National University of Ireland at Maynooth. They are on display in the School of English, Media and Theatre Studies.

From the Comments Book

The exhibition of the Map of Connections 2.0 and the Map of Encounters 1.0 is now over. A few days ago I went in and painted over the maps with a few coats of white emulsion. Thank you to everyone who visited.

Below, some remarks from the comments book followed by my replies:

“Makes you think different about Ireland and Northern Ireland,” Christopher.
“Some very interesting observations with attractive patterns emerging,” Helen.
“[ … ] place names on the photos would have been informative. Desmond.
“[ … ] Love to hear more about ‘unfriendly’ encounters and where the border gets lost,” Dan.
“Nice work, would love an excuse to explore Ireland this way, [ … ]” Miriam.
“Super duper,” Laura.

Yes, Miriam, I suggest you find that excuse. I suppose it is a part and privilege of artistic practice to go to places people normally do not. Nobody really visits the Border and that might be reason enough to go. Moreover, sections go through memorable country. The bogland north of Lough Derg and around Cuilcagh Mountain had a particular desolate beauty.


Dan, you raise a good point. I did include the vandalism of my car on The Map of Encounters but that is the only negative featured. (The stone pinned to the image, by the way, is the actual stone thrown. Not a stand in stone.) I went on my walks in a generally positive frame of mind and I suspect I was more alive to friendly, or natural, encounters. If I was not in a positive state of mind I probably would have gone home. I attempted to travel wide-eyed, as if seeing everything for the first time. This maybe preserved in the innocent atmosphere of the Map of Encounters. I feel both The Map of Encounters and The Map of Connections are attempts at a progressive, inclusive, and some how optimistic, cartography.

As for the Border getting lost, I am not sure it does. Although I certain got lost from it a few times. Several times I realised that, after half an hour, I was following the wrong hedgerow or ditch.

Desmond, your suggestion of adding place names to Map of Connections is something I am considering. Not to the photographs but perhaps to the map itself. I do want people to be able to engage with the map rapidly and not just find it puzzling. I like it that Helen found “attractive patterns emerging” but if that is the only level the work reached viewers then I may need to add traditional and ready-readable cartographical signs.

Thank you to everyone who commented.

Belfast Exhibition

If you’re in Belfast in the next couple of weeks you can see, painted on the walls of PS squared, two of my maps. We had an opening night on Thursday and I hope everybody had a good time. Instead of fancy finger food I prepared samples of my typical Border trekking provisions: mackerel sandwiches, cheap bourbon creams, and bananas. “There’s great energy in a banana,” an Armagh farmer said to me, while handing me a banana. The above photograph was taken from out on the street during the opening.

I painted the maps directly on the walls of the space. Please click through for a closer look. The Map of Connections 2.0:


The Map of Encounters 1.0:


Thank you to Peter, the curator of the space, for giving PS squared over to my work and for all his advice and encouragement.

PS squared, 18 Donegall Street, Belfast. Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 1 – 5pm. 14 – 16 October, 1 – 9pm. 18 October, 10am – 6pm.

Drawing Encounters

I will be showing The Map of Connections 2.0 and The Map of Encounters 1.0 in PS squared, Donegall Street, Belfast. The show opens on the 9th of October. I will be going in four days in advance to paint these versions of the maps on opposite walls of the gallery space. The Map of Connections is a strict diagram already laid-out and ready to be projected. The Map of Encounters is still in development and will probably continue to be so until just before the show opens. It has plenty of potential content, photographs, notes, my equipment, and the occasional souvenir. Peter, the curator of the space, is encouraging me to go in and let the creation of the map flow in a loose and instinctual way. That is not easy for me, loose is not my style, but I can see it may be a beneficial process.

In the last few days I have been producing images for The Map of Encounters. These are two examples. The farmer’s land abutted the most southern point of Northern Ireland. He pointed it out to me. Further west I was excited to see the buzzard, south of Slieve Beagh, as they are uncommon in Ireland.

Disused and dismantled

Yesterday was a day of disused and dismantled. I followed the Border south of Clones where it makes a mad loop back on itself. The result is a peninsula of the Republic sticking into the North. Its neck is only one hundred metres wide but from there it balloons out into an area twelve kilometres square. It was to even out just such twists that the Border commission was formed after partition. And no doubt they recommended the snipping of this particular headland. However, in the end, the commission’s suggestions were not acted upon.

A disused canel runs across this area. For a short while it constitutes the Border. I walk along it. I pass an abandoned warehouse with a large upper loading bay standing over the route. It will be waiting a long time for the next barge. What would it take to reflood this route? Or the others to east it could link to, such as the old Ulster Canal. The canal route I walked leads to Upper Lough Erne, and once you are there the west is your oyster.

I have walked a fair few dismantled railways toward their Border crossing points. In every case, so far, the Border has been a river along the area in question. So, I was checking to see if the bridge that once carried trains is still standing and now perhaps carrying foot-traffic. They never have been. The connection has always been broken. Either the girders have been exploded, as was the case with the Belcoo example from the July 27th entry, or its brickwork has been dismantled, leaving two stubby structures looking forlornly at each other across eight or ten metres of empty air. This dismantled railway bridge is the exception (44855, 19259).

I confess that strictly speaking this structure should not go on The Map of Connections. The growth on the southern side is too thick to easily walk through. But I cannot resist counting it as a connection. It is a rare exception I am making. I assure you this is not going to initiate slack standards. I cannot resist for one simple reason. It is beautiful.

Points Without Lines

I will be publicly showing first drafts of The Map of Connections before the year is out. I am not certain what it will look like yet. A phase of graphical experimentation now begins. The above map is, as you can see, completely abstracted from the land. It shows all the connections I have mapped so far.

Across the Blackwater

The Map of Connections is a map of unofficial Border crossings. Perhaps the most picturesque I have discovered so far are these substantial stepping stones crossing the Blackwater river. (Location: Ele 32m IH 71092 ITH 47266, Irish Grid) For a section the Blackwater is used as the Border between Tyrone and Monaghan, therefore the Border between northern and southern Ireland. There was no one around to ask about how and when these boulders were placed. It could have been twenty years ago, it was possibly two hundred.


The stepping stones are mere metres from Burn’s Bridge. Why did the locals go to the considerable effort of positioning the boulders with a bridge so near? As mentioned, it is possible the stones predate it. However, compare the worn stones of the arch to the left in the photograph and the smooth new stones of the right arch. I suspect this bridge was blown-up during the Troubles and only rebuilt recently. While this mode of connection was denied to them the locals may have taken things into their own hands. They built their own connection. Now I am happy to map it.

At the peak of Holywell Hill

In Ireland the sound of desolation is the sound of wind blowing through the gaps in a pylon, sometimes accompanied by the uneven rhythm of a loose cable slapping against the metal infrastructure. You will be exposed. You will be cold.

Near Londonderry tracks make their way to the peak of Holywell hill from both sides of the Border. The Border goes right over the crest. Just in the Northern side is a holy well. A small pool is lined in stones. It is the most lonely and humble pit I have ever seen. Pipes, the leftovers from the engineering work nearby, have been left too close to it. The fence dips and two old stones have been placed to help people step over and visit the well. This is a connection for the Map of Connections. (Ele 264m IC 38535 ITH 17005, Irish Grid)

My first map

I use a GPS device to mark my discoveries along the Border. Back at Queen’s University I upload the data from the GPS, convert it with Grid InQuest, and display it cartographically with ArcGIS. Lorraine Barry is the technician in the GIS studio and I must thank her for answering all my damn-fool questions. I have never studied geography and when I decided to re-map the Border I did not even know what the Irish Grid was. As a beginner with the hardware and the software my outputs are basic but I am getting better.


On this scale many of points are lost but my first map does give an idea of how much of the Border I have travelled so far. I have a ways to go yet, I realise. The three types of marking refer to the different maps I am producing. Finished maps will no longer feature the border or county boundaries.