Chapter Seven: Creating from the Landscape
Introduction
This chapter considers the intersections of the physical and human landscape in relation to what is ‘made’, both creatively in relation to crafts and arts but also in terms of drink and food that remains iconic to the island of Ireland.
Questions you may consider in this chapter include:
- what do products created from the landscape tell us about the making of the Irish landscape, including its physical and human elements?
- how does the process of ‘making’ from the landscape, shape the landscape, and the people who inhabit it?
- how are these elements developed from the Irish landscape depicted as reflecting Irish identity and culture over time?
We can already garner aspects of the landscape that have been physically shaped by such items. You might remember our discussion of the drink Guinness in Chapter 5; Guinness is a stout alcoholic beverage that uses barley, combining malted and roasted unmalted barley. It was integral to the development of the Grand Canal, which connected trade from the east to west of the Republic of Ireland.
In this chapter, we will consider the ways in which fashion reflects the human and physical landscape through the case study of the Aran Jumper. We will also explore how the physical landscape is drawn from to create foodstuff such as butter, that is marketed as being iconic to the Irish identity, sold and distributed within the country and abroad. At the same time, we can reflect on how these processes impact the future of the very landscape it advertises.
