

Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Day 42
For the final day of the field trip I cycled down to Ballyvaughan once more to document the famine wall there. The weather was due to be considerably more overcast than the previous day, so I thought I would have a better chance at getting the shot that I had envisioned. Although having prepared to stop en route to pump up my front tire, I was happily surprised to find that I didn't end up having the need to do so. I locked up my bike up in the same place as before, and made


Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Day 41
Although I have documented all of the confirmed Public Works Scheme constructions that I have discovered so far around the area, I hadn't yet photographed the famine wall in Ballyvaughan during this field trip. The only images I have of the wall were taken back at the start of 2017 as part of my undergraduate degree, meaning that the resultant images look quite different to the images I've been taking over the last number of weeks. Furthermore, I had not yet taken any video f


Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Day 40
As heavy rain was forecast for most of the afternoon, I thought it would be best to work locally today rather than only being able to work for a couple of hours elsewhere. This meant that I had much more time to document the area around the Carron turlough than I had originally anticipated, something that I had been neglecting over the last couple of weeks. As well as photographing the area I also shot some video footage overlooking the turlough itself, managing to find a sim


Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Days 37-39
During a recorded interview a few weeks ago I had been told of two bridges around Ballyvaughan that had been built during the famine years, or else they had undergone upgrades around that time. Originally I had thought that the bridges in question were actually the flood preventions built just south of the local church. However, upon emailing the interviewee to confirm this he informed me that one of the bridges was built next to the pier, with the other being built about 2km


Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Day 36
There was due to be quite a lot of cloud cover around the area for most of the morning, so I took advantage of this by walking down the road to document the famine road in Poulaphuca once more. Although I had already gotten various images of the road itself, I was still eager to capture an image from another slightly higher viewpoint. As well as this, I was still yet to film any footage of the road during my time here. I certainly got the weather that I was hoping for as I le


Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Day 35
The weather looked slightly more promising today so I made my way down to Mullach Mór once more to see what sort of images I could get of both constructions. I decided to go to the famine road first, as I had scouted out a couple of different viewpoints there yesterday. Strong winds occurred throughout most of the day, resulting in the sunny spells being interrupted quite frequently by short showers and overcast skies. Because of this a lot of time was spent finding a locatio


Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Day 34
During my visit to the Burren Programme centre in Carron last week, I had been told of a ditch that was built as part of the Public Works Scheme during the famine years. This ditch originated at Castle Lough, a lake that was only a couple of kilometres from the famine road that passed alongside Mullach Mór. Part of the ditch was not yet completely overgrown, and there appeared to be a clearing next to the road that ran alongside it (as shown on the satellite map below). As it


Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Day 33
I had been planning to attend a talk on Co. Clare's workhouses in the Ballyvaughan Community Centre this evening, a topic particularly relevant to my ongoing project. As it was due to finish quite late (at around 21:30), I had booked a taxi to bring me back up to the facility afterwards. The plan for today was to scout out the various famine constructions in and around Ballyvaughan, hopefully getting some useable images if the weather permitted it. I left my bike at the facil


Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Days 30-32
I was due to have another interview this evening, but once again it had to be postponed. Because of this, I had plenty of time to do the shop in Kilfenora and to document a famine wall in Carron soon afterwards. I had only been informed of this particular famine wall when I visited the Burren Life centre last week, as nobody else around the area had known of its existence. I had been able to talk to the landowner himself who said that although he wasn't 100% certain, he had a


Landscape as Witness - Field Trip: Day 29
The photographing of the famine road in New Quay was probably the most successful shoot of my previous field trip. However, due to the fact that I am now attempting to capture these constructions from above when possible, I thought I'd visit the location once more to see what sort of vantage point I could get. At the beginning of the day the weather for the shoot was ideal, bar the light rain that continued to fall as I made my way down the road from Carron towards Bellharbou