The Personality of West Cork

(Part 2)

Abstract

Someone (from West Cork?) once said that West Cork is bigger than Ireland: its tourist promoters have suggested that there is a bit of every Irish county in this region; others like Estyn Evans have argued that the particular difficulties of Ireland’s personality are all piled up in this south-western corner of the island. All of this is by way of saying that what we are exploring here is the meaning of place - place as the dynamic context for the lives of the people of (in this instance) West Cork. Life is experienced, structured and reproduced in very specific places and contrary to theories of modernisation, cultural standardisation and the role of the mass media, it would appear that local ties have diminished very little if at all in West Cork while extra-local. ties have obviously increased. What this essay seeks to explore is the making and reproduction of West Cork and its people - to explore the intrinsic importance and interest of its local and regional lifestyles as compared with the often levelling assumptions of national stereotypes.