Prejudice takes many forms, and one of the most enduring and insidious species of Irish prejudice is the attitude of cultural superiority from the supposed centre towards the perceived margins. One of my most hated phrases is the deadly “in the middle of nowhere” applied to somewhere “in the country” perceived to be so remote, so backwards, so woebegone that the idea of people actually choosing to live there brings sardonic laughter and a quick consensus that it would be better for everyone concerned to move them to the nearest big town. The supposed middle of nowhere is the middle and centre of life and identity for those who live there, and those nowhere dwellers frequently hold significant cultural and historical local knowledge that is of national (and sometimes international) significance.
I was reminded of such things on a recent road trip around counties Cavan, Monaghan and Roscommon for the RTÉ radio series The County Line. Time and again I was stopped in my tracks by a hidden detail in the landscape shown to me by local people who cared passionately about their place and who knew complex details of its story. How much poorer we would be without the considered local eye, the particular twist of spoken language and accent, the small, immense differences between one place and another.
Inward cringe
I used to be sceptical about county identity and was inclined to cringe inwardly at proclamations of “I’m a Kerry (or Louth or Waterford) man and proud of it” – it always seemed to be men who made that assertion – thinking what right has anyone to be proud of an accident of geography? The county rivalries of the GAA never fired a passion in me, perhaps because my home county of
Leitrim
never got much of a look-in when it came to championship football, and I always feared that local loyalty could easily become another form of chauvinism. Some who shouted loudest might be first up to sell their county to the highest bidder. I now think we may earn the right to feel a sense of pride in local place, in the county that helped shape our sense of identity (cultural, political, social), but we have to work to earn that right – it doesn’t come with birth. And the loyalty or pride should never be uncritical or unquestioning. These reservations aside, part of me always retained a quiet, strong sense of identity defined by the land, lakes, people, talk and borders of the county in which I grew up, and I was proud (yes) to be part of the “Leitrim Equation 4” concerts, which explored place through music, words, song and dance.
People who dismiss the significance of local identity should read Eoin Bourke's Poor Green Erin (German travel writers in Ireland 1783-1865), a book that captures the unique qualities of land and people in different parts of this small island; or the books of Henry Glassie on Ballymenone in Co Fermanagh, classics of international ethnological study and works of profound human empathy and illumination.
Glassie made the names and lives of people like Hugh Nolan, Michael Boyle, Ellen Cutler and Peter and Joseph Flanagan resonate into the middle of the world. Their stories, divisions, unities and experiences make a universal church of an ear of corn, a quick and enduring drama of straw, delft and dung hill. Few communities receive the gift of a good listener and sympathetic observer, but if more people took the time to read, look and listen, there might be less talk of "the middle of nowhere" and more understanding of how the edge is often the true centre.
In travelling around three counties at the centred edge of Ireland, I was reminded of the richness and diversity of rural Ireland, the complexity of community, and struck by the depth of change that is happening with a speed we haven’t yet grasped. Becoming as Irish as the Irish ourselves are Brazilians, Poles, Nigerians, Latvians; Roscommon and Brazilian accents merge, Polish and Cavan intonations blur and make something new. That’s the good side of change, and it’s mostly in towns.
Emptying
Simultaneously, rural areas are emptying: it was sad to return to places like Glangevlin in Co Cavan and see the impact of emigration, the huge fall in population in three decades. The
Dowra
mart manager, Terence McGovern, pointed to a triangle between Glan,
Blacklion
and Dowra and predicted in little over a decade the place would be almost empty of people – more room for trees and wind turbines.
It's a long time since John Healy wrote No One Shouted Stop about the decline of Charlestown in Co Mayo. As rural areas around lose their people, there are fewer and fewer voices to speak or shout at all, and I fear there are fewer at the urban centre who care to listen.
Vincent Woods presents The County Line on RTÉ Radio 1. The Leitrim Equation 4 DVD will be launched in Carrick-on- Shannon on Culture Night. vwoods@eircom.net