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.

Northern Ireland Without History ...

... is hard to imagine. But Google Maps, for a while at least, can help us imagine such a thing. Google Maps' aerial photographs lag behind the true development of Belfast. In this image it seems that the public record office is nothing but brownfield, utterly vacant.


Fig1.


Fig2, zoomed in a little.

In reality, of course, a shiny new edifice now stands here, the new Public Record Office of Northern Ireland is open for visitors and researchers. But on Google Maps the site is empty. As if Northern Ireland has decided against keeping records and wiped the slate clean.

Watching the Border

The French Geographic Journal EchoGéo has just published a paper where I discuss my map, The map of Watchful Architecture 1.0. The paper is online at this link. It is illustrated and in English. Apart from details from my own map the paper is also illustrated by this Crown Copyright map, below. It shows Division H, the area under the supervision of Brigadier Peter Morton when he was sent to head up 3rd Para in South Armagh during the Troubles. Dealing with the border was a major part of his duties. The border along Division H was not so long, most of it within view of Slieve Gullion, a peak 273 metres tall. Yet it had 43 cross-border routes.

Click on the map for a closer look.

The perforated border was a security problem for Morton's troops. It was a convenient escape route for attackers. It was not well marked, leading to the occasional southern straying of the troops themselves, causing diplomatic incidents with the government of the Irish Republic.

During those years many political figures were calling for the complete sealing of the border with a fence or wall that would then be patrolled and defended. Morton, who daily felt the effects of the open border, nonetheless rejected such ideas. In his memoir of his time in South Armagh he remarks that such a construction would have been "against democracy." This makes best sense in the context of the time. Winston Churchill's use of Iron Curtain metaphor was still reverberating across Europe. The closed border to the east and Berlin’s division were powerful political symbols. The government of the United Kingdom was not going to build anything comparable to that Soviet instrument.

In 1976, shortly before Morton’s deployment to Northern Ireland, Margaret Thatcher made a speech to the Finchley Conservatives. It was to become a well-known speech as it was when the soon-to-be prime minister embraced the term Iron Lady. Who better to do battle with an Iron Curtain? In the speech she said “Socialism is the denial of choice, the denial of choice for ordinary people in their everyday lives … Socialists don't trust the people. Churchill did. We do.”

The border area between Armagh and Louth. A detail from The Map of Watchful Architecture 1.0. Other views of the map illustrate the full paper at EchoGéo.

The military operation in Northern Ireland during the Troubles never did involve a large-scale sealing of the border. However, especially in South Armagh, many towers and checkpoints were built to guard over the area. We trusted people, but some people needed watching.

Fracking on the Border

The map below displays the area of Co. Fermanagh marked for Fracking, an extremely controversial method of extracting gases from under the ground. Two companies have been granted exploration licenses for this area but the issue is now coming under fresh examination.


Click on the map for a closer look.

In the Fracking process boreholes are made into shale rock. This is a common rock-form in north-western Ireland, what geologists call a Carboniferous Basin unites counties Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Donegal and Fermanagh. Water and chemicals are forced down into natural fractures in the rock, opening them and allowing the gas to be extracted. One risk is that of the chemical cocktail seeping into ground water and endangering health. There are others concerns, such as the possibility that Fracking contributes to earth tremors. Fracking companies themselves admit that this is a very young technology and all its side-effects are not yet fully understood. Tomorrow (December 6th) a motion calling for a moratorium on Fracking in Northern Ireland will be under debate in Parliament buildings, Belfast. A group calling themselves 'No Fracking Way' will be outside Stormont seeking to highlight the environmental dangers of the process.

Protest is loud south of the border too and, as Andy Pollack observed on Slugger O’Toole lately, the fight against Fracking is starting to turn into a cross-border campaign.


A cartographic statement by Brigitta Varadi and John the Map. I lifted at this image from the profile of Stephen Rennicks, an artist who lives in the area and who is a part of the Engage Collective.

Here’s one particularly vibrant and sturdy piece of awareness-raising happening south of the border. 'Talk About Fracking' is an exhibition and website by the Engage Artist Collective The exhibition is running for a few more days at Mercantile Plaza in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim. The map above features in the exhibition. It shows possible Fracking drilling paths in Glenfarne area, south of Lough MacNean. Creation of the map was a collaboration between Brigitta Varadi and someone called John the Map. John the Map sounds like someone I would like to meet.