Carleton, Kavanagh and the South Ulster Landscape c. 1800–1950

Abstract

The short stories of William Carleton and the novels and poetry of Patrick Kavanagh are examined for the light they throw on the personality of the south Ulster landscape. Carleton wrote about the region in the prefamine decades; Kavanagh for the years before the second world war. Both writers, therefore, were witness to changes in society and landscape in one of the most formative periods in the making of modem Ireland. Irish geographers might profitably focus their attention on analyses of the sense of place and regional literature in Ireland.

Notes

Relph, op. cit. 117.

Foreword to Rose Shaw. Carleton's Country, Dublin 1930, 9.

Published as ‘Tubber Derg or The Red Well’ in Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, William Tegg edition, 1865, 2 volumes.

Ibid., 386.

Tubber Derg', 372.

The Black Prophet op. cit.

The Midnight Mass', 346.

Ned McKeown', 16.

The Black Prophet, 56ff.

Dandy Kehoe's Christening' published in Tubber Derg or The Red Well, Dublin, 1984, 175.

Ned McKeown', 9.

The Party Fight', 228.

See, for example, Phelim O'Toole's Courtship and other stories, by William Carleton, Mercier edition, 1973, 208, 252.

See, P. Robinson, The Plantation of Ulster. Dublin 1984.

The Party Fight', 216.

Ibid., 211.

The Party Fight', 228.

The Black Prophet, 25; ‘Phelim O'Toole's Courtship’, 197.

The Midnight Mass', 325.

The Black Prophet, 16, 17.

Ned McKeown', 16.

Dandy Keohoe's Christening', op. cit., 182–183.

Unless otherwise stated all poetry extracts arc taken from The Complete Poems of Patrick Kavanagh. The Peter Kavanagh Hand Press, New York. 1972.

November Haggard — Uncollected prose and verse of Patrick Kavanagh, Peter Kavanagh Handpress, N.Y. 1973. 31, 69–70.

November Haggard, 15.

The Green Fool, 122, 125.

Ibid., 73.

Ibid., 90.

Ibid., 212.

The Green Fool, 131, 244.

Ibid., 180.

Ibid., 213.

Ibid., 167.

Ibid., 158.

By Night Unstarred: An autobiographical novel by Patrick Kavanagh. edited by Peter Kavanagh, Goldsmith Press, 1977, 7, 8.

Collected Pruse, 33.

The poem ‘Raglan Road’ was first published in The Irish Press, October 1946. ‘Canal Bank’ was published in 1956. Both are included in The Complete Poems.

November Haggard, 45, Also By Night Unstarred. 292.

The Green Fool, 7, 8.

See A. Gailey. Rural Houses of the North of Ireland, Edinburgh, 1984.

The Green Fool, 19.

Ibid., 98, 99.

Ibid., 63.

T. J. Dunne, ‘Literature as historical evidence: a case study — the Irish novels of Maria Edgeworth’ Interdisciplinary Seminary, Maynooth College. January 1984. The biennial Conference of Irish Historians in Cork in 1985 was devoted to the theme of literature as an historical source.

Barnes and Curry, op.cit. 481.

Yi-Fu Tuan, op.cit., 220; D. C. D. Pocock, Imaginative literature and the Geographer' in Pocock (ed.) Humanistic Geography and Literature. London. 1981. 12. See also Jay Appleton. The poetry of habitat. Landscape Research Group and Dept. of Geography, University of Hull, 1978, 5.

W. J. Smyth. ‘Exploration of Place’ in J. Lee (ed.) op.cit., 4.

See T. Jones Hughes, Historical Geography of Ireland from c.1700. Irish Geography Jubilee Volume, 1984.