The Personality of West Cork
(Part 1)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33178/Keywords:
cork, history, irelandAbstract
What do we mean by West Cork and where is it in the first place? I suppose we could all agree that West Cork should be west of Cork city - that island city which takes its name from the boggy marsh which its people eventually reclaimed and conquered. But 'Cork' means other things as well. James Joyce had a painting of the'. city by the Lee placed in a cork frame on one of his walls - so a cork can float, and duck and weave. So already before we head westwards from Cork, two images - that of a soft treacherous bog - difficult terrain to conquer, even more difficult to hold - and that of a floating cork - shall we say a currach - swim into view. We can tack off for West Cork from many directions - for West Cork is a land of mobile boundaries, a place - whose location and character curves and shifts, depending not only on the weather, but on the different lenses and assumptions that we bring to bear on it.
References
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