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 similar viewpoint to that of which I had found for the various Public Works Scheme constructions that I have already documented.

On returning to the research facility I decided to update the map that I had created a couple of weeks ago, which contained the locations of constructions I had so far discovered over the course of the field trip. In terms of finding Public Works Scheme constructions, it has been a case of two steps forward, one step back. The Burren Programme centre were able to point me in the direction of a couple of constructions built as part of the Public Works Scheme that I previously hadn't been aware of, such as the ditch at Castle Lough and the walls just outside the village of Carron. However they also raised doubts over some of the constructions that I had already discovered, namely the road behind the Burren College of Art and the road that runs along the side of Abbey Hill in New Quay. I already had my doubts about the road behind the Burren College of Art as one of my interviewees had previously questioned its validity, however I was more confident that the road in New Quay was indeed a Public Works Scheme construction due to multiple locals testifying to this.

The updated map can be seen below. As it shows, I have now found 6 'confirmed' Public Works Scheme constructions, 7 more constructions that are currently unconfirmed, and a further 4 constructions that are connected to the famine in some way. Of the constructions that are yet to be confirmed, the two bridges in Ballyvaughan seem the most likely to be validated. This should hopefully bring the total number of confirmed Public Works Scheme constructions up to 8 at some stage. I should point out that on my previous map I had mistakenly included one of the Ballyvaughan workhouses as a Public Works Scheme construction, due to the fact that it was built during the famine years.

So far I have documented all of the 'confirmed' constructions, as well as a number of the unconfirmed/famine-related constructions around the area. Over the next few days I will be revisiting a number of the confirmed constructions to ensure that I have the necessary images/footage of them, as well as documenting some of the unconfirmed constructions just in case I am able to prove their validity once the field trip has ended.