Abandoned Ireland

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned (ad nauseum, I hear you say!), I’m taking part in a year-long photographic project called ’52 of 2012’. The idea is to take a theme-based photo each week during 2012. A few weeks ago the given theme was ‘Old, Abandoned, Decaying’.

Now, as a Number Five Enneagram personality type, I tend to do a lot of observing. You see, Fives (sometimes labelled the ‘Investigator’) are alert and curious by nature. The animal totem of the Five is the owl, possessed of wisdom gained through observation and knowledge. I’ll blog about that at a later stage but for now, suffice to say as I increasingly look at things with a photographer’s eye, I’m amazed at how much I was missing all this time! This came home to me especially during the ‘Old, Abandoned, Decaying’ week.

One of the rules of the project is that the photo you submit must be taken during the week of the particular theme. As misfortune would have it, on the Saturday before the ‘Old, Abandoned, Decaying’ week I happened to be travelling to Trim in Co. Meath when I spotted by the roadside a very old, very decaying and clearly very abandoned farm cottage - a perfect subject. I drove past as I realised it would be pointless to stop for a photo of it since I would be unable to use it in the project. But I resolved to research old and abandoned photo opportunities near where I live.

The next day, while weaving my way through Google, I discovered that quite a few amateur photographers in Ireland have a keen interest in abandoned buildings. In particular, I came across a website called Abandoned Ireland – established by Tarquin Blake, author of Abandoned Mansions of Ireland. The website, like the book, features mainly old abandoned buildings of the larger variety (mansions, churches, hospitals, industrial premises, …) although several smaller dwellings are also covered. It is one person’s attempt to record and document our heritage as represented by these buildings before they are gone. There is a link at the end of this post if you want to visit it for yourself.

Through this research, I became quite fascinated by ‘abandoned Ireland’. I found myself increasingly drawn to the smaller dwellings – homes of individuals and families which had long since been vacated and abandoned, left to decay slowly and not always gracefully. I began to think beyond the photo opportunities these presented. Who had lived in these houses and cottages? What kind of people were they? Who walked through the front door or looked out of the long-gone windows. What kind of life did they have? What were the circumstances which led to these homes being abandoned? Where did the people go and what did they leave behind? Did a lonely, sole occupant simply die and the property was not passed on? So many questions which will never be answered.

Finally, the Saturday of ‘Old, Abandoned, Decaying’ week arrived and I still had not taken my photograph for that week. Only one day left to do so. I arose at 6.30am and decided to drive into Dublin. I was sure I would find some decaying urban premises to be my subject. I drove by the abandoned Boland’s Flour Mills at Grand Canal Dock then travelled on to the north quays and down to the docklands area. Some possibilities but nothing that was really shouting at me to photograph it and certainly nothing that had that old-world charm factor!

I drove to the Phoenix Park to find the old Magazine Fort (the existence of which I had not known about until my Googling earlier in the week). I decided that scaling the wall to enter the Fort would be a bit much for me, especially as I didn’t know how difficult it might be to scale back out again! I motored on and marvelled at the early morning deer in the park. Then I remembered – the abandoned farm cottage near Trim.

Twenty minutes later I was standing in a field outside Trim, camera and tripod at the ready and again knew I had found the perfect subject for my shot of the week. The result is at the top of this post. Before I left the location, I took one last walk around the old cottage, pondering the questions that I related above.

Two weeks later we spent a few days in Connemara. As we were driving around looking for the next place to stop for some photos, I was amazed at how many old and abandoned dwellings we passed. Some of the not-so-old ones still had tattered curtains hanging inside the broken and decaying windows. I remarked to myself that I hadn’t seemed to notice many of these dwellings the previous times I drove these roads and I wondered was I less of a Five personality than the Enneagram had told me. Rather than dwell too much on that, I decided just to be thankful that due to photography my eyes were now more open to a very poignant and important piece of our national heritage. I wonder how future generations will look at old, abandoned and decaying buildings from the era we now live in? Are the ghost estates destined to be the heritage that our future generations will seek out as examples of ‘old, abandoned, decaying’?

Link to my photo of the inside of the farm cottage.

Link to Tarquin Blake's 'Abandoned Ireland' website.

Being There

I took the above picture a little over a month ago. It was my entry for ‘monochrome’ week in the 52 photo project I’m doing this year. When I studied the photo I knew I would write a blog post about it – but just didn’t know exactly what that would be. Initially, I thought it might simply be a description of where the photo was taken. However, I’ve been led in a slightly more reflective direction. But I’ll start anyway with some background to the location.

Close to where I live, in a disused landscaped quarry, lies the German War Cemetery in Glencree. Dedicated on July 9th 1961, the graveyard is located close to the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. One hundred and thirty four persons are buried here including Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Many are known, some are unknown. These were originally in 59 Graves across 15 counties of Ireland until being moved to Glencree. Most of the graves belong to flyers of the Second World War who were washed up on our shores. Included also are the victims of the Arandora Star, German civilian detainees sunk by U-Boat in 1940 off Tory Island.

Despite living close by all my life, I first visited this cemetery less than 2 months ago. I found it to be a place of great beauty and tranquillity. In the years since its dedication it has become, as well as a memorial for Germany’s war dead and a focal point for the Irish - German community, a place also for peace and reflection to a much wider society.

While there, I was struck by several thoughts related to death and how we mark it. Firstly, I was reminded that in violent conflict there is loss of life on all sides. Through the ages, countless millions – human beings, flesh and blood – have made the ultimate sacrifice in times of war. The unfortunate souls buried in this beautiful and tranquil place most likely died young, died violently, died a long way from home and therefore died lonely deaths away from their loved ones. The reverse side, of course, is that for each of these deceased, there were family and friends who perhaps didn’t know until well after the fact that their loved one had gone. For them, no chance for a last goodbye, no ritual of celebration or thanksgiving for the life that was before a final farewell at the graveside at the time of laying to rest. Not how most of us would wish to depart this life.

Secondly, I was reminded of a remark a friend of mine had recently made in relation to the Catholic Church that, despite its many faults and failings, it does death well. I would fully subscribe to that view. The ritual surrounding death in the Catholic Church seems to me, in most cases, to strike a perfect balance between mourning the passing, celebrating the life and at the same time extending compassion and support to the family and friends.

In more general terms, one could say that the Irish do death well. Our culture is one of strong community presence and support to friends, neighbours and colleagues who are grieving the loss of a loved one. In this aspect, I recall many years ago when I joined the workforce I had the privilege to work with an extraordinary colleague who, for want of a better way of putting it, just seemed always to do the right thing. One of his strongest principles was that of lending support to work colleagues who had lost a close family member. In this, he led by example. I don’t recall any occasion where he prioritised a work situation over making the time to pay his respects at a removal or a funeral Mass when a colleague had lost a parent or a partner.

Whenever I attend a funeral, and unfortunately I had the opportunity to do so twice in the past week, I often think back to the example set by my erstwhile work colleague. It reminds me not to underestimate the importance of supporting those we know who are grieving – and it can be as simple as a handshake, a hug or mere presence – being there.

What Do You Believe?

Yesterday morning at church the homily was delivered by our retired parish priest, Fr. John O’Connell. Fr. John is one of the most Christian, most compassionate and most intelligent people I've come to know. In the 30-odd years I've known him, he has delivered through word and deed a very pragmatic view of Christianity. I may revisit that in a future post. Now, however, I want to tell you something of yesterday’s homily which Fr. John based entirely on the interview, broadcast on Jan 22^nd 2012, between Fr. Shay Cullen and Gay Byrne as part of ‘The Meaning of Life’ series. Fr. Shay is one of the founders of PREDA (People’s Recovery Empowerment Development Assistance). This small charitable organisation has a number of purposes which include the promotion and protection of the dignity and the Human Rights of the Filipino people, especially of women and children. I missed the original broadcast but I made it my business yesterday to watch it on playback.

I know Fr. John well enough to believe he has great respect for the way Fr. Shay spoke in that interview and for the pragmatic views he espoused. Let me briefly relate some of the points from the interview that Fr. John covered in his sermon. During the course of his questioning, Gay asked Fr. Shay about various aspects of his faith. He asked him what his image of God is. He replied that it was not the image as portrayed by the likes of Michelangelo, for example. Rather, he expressed his image of God as the existence of eternal goodness – the power and the force of love, caring for and respecting each other. When asked about the Mass, he answered that he found it a bit too ‘religioso’ in its current ritual and quite removed from what Jesus would have experienced. He likened it more to a meal of friendship. Asked about his thoughts on the ‘real presence’ (transubstantiation is the technical term, or the ‘magic bits’ as a friend of mine refers to it), he replied that he sees it more as the presence of Jesus being recreated by the people in the congregation who believe in the spirit of his message and want to carry on his mission. Regarding the resurrection, and Gay was quite specific on his meaning here – the ‘bodily’ resurrection – Fr. Shay says ‘we go with that’ but further explains that what Jesus lived and believed in – his message – is alive because his followers decided to keep the spirit of his message alive by living according to what he had taught them. 

Now if I was being asked to offer a critique of the programme I would say the questions were all very high level but nonetheless relevant. Anyway, how much depth can you go to in a 25-minute interview? Regarding the answers, I would say on matters of doctrine as professed by the Catholic Church, Fr. Shay probably did enough to avoid being branded a heretic. Not that it would bother him, I’m sure. Where he excelled, for this viewer at least, was in offering a different view or interpretation on several of the central tenets of the Catholic faith.

Why did yesterday’s sermon strike such a chord with me? Well you see, in the last few years I’ve gone through a bit of a crisis of faith, for want of a better way of putting it. The reasons are many and varied but suffice to say for now that I have become extremely disillusioned (perhaps irretrievably so) with the ways of the institutional Catholic Church. But more than that – I had started to question some of the fundamental teachings of the church. The revelation for me yesterday was hearing a cleric address the same questions I am struggling with but answering them in a way that made a lot of sense to me. You might well ask why I continue to attend Mass if I have so many questions and misgivings. I am very active in music ministry and I find that very challenging and fulfilling. Anyway, I don’t hold sway with the “if you don’t like the rules join another club” brigade and as Fr. John famously encourages people “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

So, what do I believe? What is my image of God? Well, I don’t have one because I’m no longer sure that there is the existence of an almighty being responsible for creating everything we see. In many ways, it doesn’t matter whether I believe in such an existence or not. God as a being or entity either exists or does not exist, irrespective of what I believe. Like Fr. Shay, I believe in the existence of goodness (and evil – this was covered in the interview also) but that these things are not outside us but within us as part of our human nature, our human spirit. I believe that a man whom we know as Jesus Christ walked on earth 2,000-odd years ago. He was a prophet and a rebel in a time and a place where oppression was rife. I believe his message was that people were not going to find a solution to their problems by worshipping false gods. Rather, he taught them that god is love – not the sun, the moon, the sea, money, greed, power or anything else. He called people to use the love and the spirit within themselves to work for freedom and justice. His notion of the kingdom of god (kingdom of love) is achieved right here through making justice, love, concern and compassion for others the number one priority.

I believe the Mass as we know it today is in stark contrast to the image we have of the last supper – Jesus gathered with his friends, his community, most likely around a wooden table and sharing whatever bread and drink was procured from the local market. I doubt there was a bodily resurrection of Jesus. It is far more likely that the Romans disposed of the body to avoid creating a shrine to the rebel they had just defeated. I have a lot of empathy with Fr. Shay’s view that the spirit of Jesus’ message lives on by the decision of those who believed in his message to continue the work that he had started. I believe that, unfortunately, a lot of Jesus’ message has gotten lost in a fog of dogma, doctrine and canon law that has been developed through the ages by the Church.    

I believe that we need more people with the clarity of vision and the courage of Fr. Shay and Fr. John, able and willing to peel away the irrelevant paraphernalia that the Church has built up over many centuries and which now has so much power and control vested in its structures and belief systems that it cannot back away from them. Alas I fear such people of courage are few and far between in the Catholic Church. Vatican-II offered us a vision and a blueprint for the Catholic Church in the modern world and a true recognition of the role of everyone in the Church, women and men alike, to bring about the kingdom of love. Progress towards that vision appears to have stalled – some might even say we are in reverse gear. Unfortunately, there are too many Vatican men now emerging from the seminaries and not enough Vatican-II men. And no women. 

You can read more about PREDA here.

You can view Fr. Shay's interview with Gay Byrne here.

In The Moment

The lead-in to summer 2011 was not a good time for me. Several years of stress and strain were about to take their toll and my mind was saying “enough”. Things improved over the summer, thanks largely to support of family and friends.

Fast forward to Christmas and year end - a time of year when it is natural to look backward on what has been and to look forward to what one hopes the future may hold. This is where the wheels came off a bit. Looking backward just raised questions to which I may never get the answers. Probably best not to dwell on it then. What of the future? Well, I was struck by an interview on Jan 2^nd with Prof. Richard Tol of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). It turns out he has decided to up sticks from Ireland and head to the UK. He believes that austerity in Ireland will not last 4 years – more like 10-15 years. Probably best not to think too much about the future either, although my heart goes out to all, especially our young people, who are forced by economic circumstances to move overseas and also to their families who watch them go.    

So I’ve decided for the New Year to try to live just in the moment. It won’t be easy. There will be reminders of the stresses I’ve had over the past few years. At least now I know these are potential ‘trigger points’ for me so hopefully I will be able to deal with that. It will be impossible to avoid hearing about the future, especially from the ‘doom and gloom’ merchants. Ok – maybe they are right and we are in for a period of prolonged austerity. Our ancestors survived worse, and so will we. As individuals, our span of control in these matters is quite limited. What we can control is how we deal with it. I’m going to deal with it by not worrying about it – which is going to be a challenge for a natural worrier!

So, what’s going to keep me grounded ‘in the moment’? I believe my new-found interest in the form of photography is going to help me a lot with that. When I’m out with the camera I spend so much time thinking about my surroundings and the potential shots I can take that I don’t have time to worry or analyse anything else! And what else is photography other than capturing the moment – not the past, not the future but the absolute here and now. Fail to get the shot and it’s gone forever. That exact moment will never happen again.

To ensure I spend adequate time engaged in my pursuit, I’ve signed up for a ‘52’ project. That means submitting one photo a week on a specific theme for the duration of 2012. I can’t wait to submit my first photo at the end of this week. I’ll post a link to my ‘52’ here on my blog once I have posted the first picture. I’m hoping that some of the shots will inspire future blog posts – note - hoping, but not worrying!

Unfortunately, New Year’s Day doesn’t count in the particular ‘52’ project I signed up for, as Week 1 began at 00:00 on Jan 2^nd. However, the particular photo I wanted to accompany this blog post is one I took on January 1^st. It was at the Bray Charities Sea Swim. This annual event, organised by Bray Lions Club, has been going for 28 years and has the dual purpose of having some festive fun while raising funds for local charities. Over the years, the event has realised more than €250,000 for a long list of worthy local causes. Around 200 swimmers took part this year and proceeds are going to Bray St. Vincent de Paul.

Why did I choose this particular photo? Firstly, I like the expression on Frank’s face (and the colour of his towel, which originally attracted me to the shot). What I didn’t realise at the time is the great back-drop of the crowd. It shows what a community event the sea swim is – people straining to see or to catch a shot of a family member, neighbour or friend brave enough to take to the water. I’ll bet all those swimmers were ‘in the moment’ as they plunged in to the cold waters of the Irish Sea!


A very Happy New Year to you all  :)