They should be able to keep on growing potatoes, if not in the same quantity as now. In Greece, and I imagine Egypt and Cyprus where the new ones come from, they just put them in earlier, and harvest them earlier, and very good they are too.
Salmon and sea-trout can adapt to changing patterns of river flow when it's a matter of their returning to spawn - they might stay out of the rivers till winter, and run up quickly then. No fun for the anglers, of course. But warming may bring them other hazards, from heat-kill of young fish to unacceptable ocean conditions, one way or another, for the adults.
Mr Hayes said, "I feel frightened and worried. I feel despair. It goes into every aspect of my life."
I feel the despair, but I am angry, because the only time that anything can be done to prevent disaster is *now*. What we do *now*, while things are still relatively stable, determines how bad things will get in the future.
Unfortunately, the 'things will adapt' argument you put, nicholas, is not correct. The climate won't just get drier and then stop and settle down, it'll keep on getting more extreme.
And what about all those people from Africa, Egypt, Greece, what happens to them ? Don't you think that if Ireland is habitable, they'll be trying to enter the country to survive ? Maybe put a wall around to keep them out, and just watch them die on the tele ? Germany could be as hot as central Australia in summer by 2050...10's of millions of desperate people trying to survive...
ceolachan called me an 'extremist', but I'm only saying the same thing as Jose Manuel d Barrosso, the President of the European Union ( and many other well-informed individuals across the spectrum of opinion ).
As far as the salmon and sea trout are concerned, the Ocean is becoming acidic (because of absorbed CO2) which will presumably have a big effect upon them and what they eat.
wolfbird - I know not everything can adapt; I only mentioned two things (salmon and spuds) that might - the former to a more limited extent. I'll turn back to your post and mull it over.
nicholas, (nothing personal against you, in case my post sounded that way). I have heard the 'things will adapt' argument from many people around here, my neighbours, who seem to put it forward as a form of wishful thinking without having any real understanding of the problems. Ecosystems we have, woodland, marsh, farmland, rivers, have had thousands of years to adapt to the general climate we have had for thousands of years. They can't change fast enough to keep up with the very rapid changes happening now and into the future. Everything gets out of sync. The small birds lay their eggs so that the hatching coincides with the emergence of caterpillars, etc. A week late or early means they starve and die. Farmers can cope with bad seasons, they always have, within limits. But it's a matter of degree and predictability. The woodlands of Ireland are a result of the wet climate. They will be changed out of all recognition. People are already growing Olive trees in S. England. But the ecology is one thing. Perhaps even more worrying is the global politics, because big powerful nations like Russia and India and Germany are not going to quietly let themselves disappear. If there is habitable parts of the planet available, if there is minerals and water and oil, they'll be fighting to get at it. I'm angry. Only one person in 14 in UK thinks this all is a 'serious problem'. I just wish they'd wake up, change their personal carbon footprints, put as much pressure as possible on leaders to get something done, fast.
wolfbird - I think the main tenor of your post is true - that climatic conditions will rapidly and continually get more inimical, that the natural world will suffer and much of it will dwindle or die, and that the human world stands to incur huge catastrophes and great unrest. I haven't gone into it thoroughly, which means being able to judge the claims and counter-claims made within the scientific community, but do notice some of the things nature gets up to on my doorstep. I was interested in the article about how climate change might affect Ireland. On stays in Greece and Israel, I noticed how fertile seemingly barren summer landscapes can be in the cooler months. (Unless the Earth goes AWOL itself, we'll still at least have seasons, even in a chaotic climate.)
The chips might well be down for the salmon, except in the far North. Warmer oceans, a dearth of plankton and thus shoal-fish to eat, toxic blooms and/or jellyfish swarms might militate against them.
Yes, nicholas, it is difficult to get one's head around all the information. I trust the NASA science and the Hadley centre, as being the most reliable models for what the future climate will look like. But both have to operate under political constraints, so they can't say 'panic, panic!' but I did read on one forum where I lurk, the climate scientists discussing amongst themselves which might be the best parts of the world to take their families to, if they want to survive.
I don't think that we do necessarily have 'seasons'. What we get is hot patches in the middle of winter, freezing patches in the middle of summer, more extremes of everything, droughts, deluges, hurricanes. It's a bit like heating a pan of water. As the temperature increases everything swirls about faster and faster.
It's true that Greece and Israel can be very pleasant and fertile, but so, once, was the Sahara Desert.
What we have to imagine is that there will be extreme shortages of food, because the agriculture in many countries will be wrecked. It's easy to say that, well, we could fix that, if we extract purified water from the oceans, but the trouble is that would require huge energy, from oil or electricity. Makes the warming worse. And any of the individual problems could, perhaps, be solved if enough money and resources get thrown at them - like lots of new nuclear power plants - but we'll also be coping with rising sea levels, population increase, ( a third more people on the planet over next 30 years) wars, many millions more refugees,...there's nothing 'good' about any of it.
My brain just got stuck. I had a random thought & the circuit shorted out. Hope someone can make sense of this & add something relevant;
Fertility? Depends on how you define the term.
Anthropocentically it would be based on soils, type of crops, availability of water. Now check out soil fertility in the rain forest. Not much soil. Plenty of fertility though.
I think soil types in rain forests vary a lot, so wrong to generalise, but tropical soils do work very differently to temperate soils. Many tropical forests are on very barren ground, but, over very long periods of time, they have evolved to recycle all nutrients very fast and very efficiently. It's a bit like juggling plates. Everything goes round and round beautifully.
Temperate ecosystems work more slowly because there is less energy (sunlight) going into the system. Even slower up in the tundra. There it's more like chucking one plate up in the air once a year. So they might be regarded as 'low fertility'.
Thinking about fertility and the landscape. People admire the Welsh (and Irish?) hills and think they are looking at 'wild nature'. It's ignorant garbage. They're looking at a man-made desert. The mountains were once covered in forest, the original wildwood. People cut down the tress to make grazing land. The unprotected soil washed away and down into the sea, leaving the hills rather infertile, kept bare by centuries of sheep and cattle which took what fertility there was, converted it into meat which walked down the drover's roads to the English cities, where it passed through human bodies and into the sewers and into the sea.
If you define nature as "the original condition of flora, fauna, and geology not altered by human activity", we have killed nature, because there is no place on the whole planet *anywhere* that is not changed by human activity, pollution, acid rain, global warming, plastic waste, etc, etc.
Some people - most people - seem to think that's just fine and dandy. I don't. I think it's a monstrous crime and we now get to pay for the foolishness...
Wolfbird. You will recall a lengthy discussion a while ago on this subject. Please recall that Jeremy, rightly, removed it. Take the hint. Find another blog to discuss this questionable hypothesis. Google "hoax", perhaps.
I'm aware of your position, feardearg. Perhaps you'd like to comment (constructively?) upon Martin Hayes' remarks at the top of the thread ? Irish traditional music exists within the context of Irish culture, both in Ireland and distributed around the world. IMO, what happens to Irish traditional music in the coming years cannot be separated out from what happens to peoples and cultures more generally. I don't see you giving warnings to folks on this site not to discuss rugby, or the many other topics which arise which have no obvious connection to ITM or even to music. You're perfectly entitled to disagree with me on anything. You may think I'm mistaken or the victim of a hoax, but then you'll think the same of J. M. d Barrosso and Tony Blair and the folks from NASA who are saying the same things that I am saying.
(Quite embarrassing for me to be in such company,btw)
Jeremy! I am really fighting the temptation here. Please accept my non-participation as a sign of repentance of any crime I have committed on this board in the past. I am trying very hard to walk the strait and narrow dispite the attempts of other sinners to draw me in.
I thought Martin Hayes' comments around the music being part of the climate was interesting. I've heard Altan say that the music is also part of the land - comes from a musical interpretation of the land, the climate, ecosystems, and people's part in it, especially those grown up in it, who have, perhaps a more intuitive resonance with the place they were born in, than those coming to it as adults.
I just wonder, if that's correct, what ITM would sound like now, if it was the product of a hot climate of centuries ago? Hmmm.
And just on the climate side of the argument, seems to me that a lot of people who think that things will be 'adaptable', might be missing the point that climate change is a continuum. It is not going to just get warmer up to a few more pleasant degree - and then stop. There is no 'stop', until the cause of the warming is ceased. I think the planet has its own ways of adjusting to imbalances - as harsh as the reality is.
If it gets so hot that the place is uninhabitable, at least on the surface perhaps, then the cause of global warming will be removed. That's the ultimate harshness.
I did think you were trying to shoot the messenger because you don't like the news.
I'll also withdraw from the thread as a conciliatory gesture, unless there's some specific technical matter or information where I feel I can be helpful. I'm not trying to pick a pointless quarrel.
Yes, Duijera Dubh. We can't do anything now about the warming that's already in the pipeline, which is certainly going make things very messy. Tony Blair is trying to get an international agreement for 50 percent reduction by 2050, but James Hansen, (who is acknowledged to be the most expert in the field) says we must get 90 percent by 20 50. What chance of that ?
Your mention of the landscape reminds me of Junior Crehan saying he couldn't emigrate, like some of his relatives, because of his love for the land. Now nothing is sacred anymore. They'll even run a motorway through Tara. Such people don't deserve this planet, IMO.
Yes, all the talk of percent this or that by 2020, 2050, intrigues me. By the look of news unfolding almost weekly, glacial melt, especially in Europe, Greenland, Antarctica is accelerating exponentially. I think the ice sheets could well be right off the table by then! We'll all be sitting around up to our waists in water, celebrating the partial cuts in carbon emissions.
I've actually spent a bit of time walking around those areas where Junior Crehan lived in Clare. (My own people came from the area in famine times). The (rural) land has not changed, except the new houses dotted around the area, and the old ruined ones still there. I stood there looking out and around the district, with Slieve Callan, right there, and imagined his various tunes, and what if anything was, to me, a connection between what you see and feel in the land, and his tune(s). Seems to strike a resonance alright. Maybe it's the history of the place, or the ancientness, or something.
Ofcourse we like to think the rural land hasn't changed, it's an attractive thought, but ofcourse it has, Mount Callan covered in forestry that was planted during the fifties being maybe a case in point.
I read that in the North Pennines anyway - the bit of upland country nearest to me - the peat bog cover began to replace forest on the tops as a result of a shift to a cooler climate and higher rainfall, maybe around 6000 BC (not sure about this), with little if any human agency involved.
'Maybe it was covered in forest, and maybe a lot of north west Clare long before that as well kilfarboy. '
Hardly covered in sitka spruce I'd think. West Clare had it's cover of Oak, with the stumps still buried in the bogs still bearing witness(the few that haven't been pulled up and burned) As for North Clare, photographic record from the late 19th century shop a barren landscape where now the Burren is being covered by hazel shrub, quite significant changes there too.
My point ofcourse was the landscape has seen drastic changes even since Junior wrote his tunes. As was said earlier in this thread, the irish landscape is essentially a thoroughly manmade one. And while I would be the first to agree about the connection between music and people and places, it is good to realise the landscape is not static and set aside romantic notions that what you see is ancient and unchanged.
You say a 'few new houses': at this point more than 60% of all houses in Ireland have been built during the past ten years. I don't know when you last wandered here but you may find changes have been greater than any of us could have imagined possible fifteen years ago. And then I am still ignoring the windmills towering over the bogs south of Doo Lough.
I guess I might be one of the lucky few then, kil, whose relatives are still on the same land that some of our forebears left in the 1840s. It hasn't changed, they don't put forestry on it, the old original ruined house is there with the original flags, there is plenty of bog deal around, there's a lovely view of Slieve Callan from one side and to the cliffs and Liscannor the other. No one has lived there for probably around 80 years now, but you can still see where the turf has been cut by them when they were there. Then there is the rath in the next field, reminding that people have been there for a very long time. All the fields around there are the same, enclosed as they are by the stone walls, but sure, some have got forestry now.
Maybe the forestry gives a better idea of what it might have looked like covered in the oak. But then again, you couldn't have seen Slieve Callan then, I guess. I don't think our area has changed a lot in the last number of hundreds of years, but sure before that, it would no doubt have been heavily wooded, maybe even up to the mid to late 1600s or so. Before that, I see that the area had hardly any English speakers, these being mainly down around the ports areas, so presumably there may not have been a lot of clearing going on until that time in history. Nice to be there - been there a number of times, latest around five or six years ago. Romantic now maybe, but no such luxuries back then.
I am afraid Duijera Dubh you'll find the view is now being interfered with by the dozens of houses that have gone up around the Crosses of Annagh, the suburban sprawl all along the Mullagh Road, spilling over into Knockliscane but even if you manage to look past that, there's the growth around Spanish Point the sprawl of holidaycottages on the headlands of Liscannor that have completely overgrown all that was there even ten years ago.
They are expecting a bright future for Greenland's farming (no joke). Yes, the culture is likely to change with peoples' living conditions. But those depend on the economy in general as well.
Ah yes, but Kilfarboy, the old Willie Week might have had a small influence don't you think in terms of encouraging the building of accommodation in the area. I know it's just a week, maybe stretched to two of rental income - but it must be pretty damn good income and reliable regardless of weather.
I don't think you can blame the Willie Week for the building boom, what about the suburban estates that have overgrown Inagh, Corofin, Kilmaley, Tulla and similar villages all over the county and country? Or the irreparable damage done to Lahinch or Kilkee?
It's a state of mind you know, and the fastest growing population in the EU.
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For what flowed Irelands blood in rivers,
That began when Brian chased the Dane,
And did not cease nor has not ceased,
With the brave sons of ´16,
For what died the sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
Was it greed that drove Wolfe Tone to a paupers death in a cell of cold wet stone?
Will German, French or Dutch inscribe the epitaph of Emmet?
When we have sold enough of Ireland to be but strangers in it.
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To those brave men who fought and died that Róisín live again with pride?
Her sons at home to work and sing,
Her youth to dance and make her valleys ring,
Or the faceless men who for Mark and Dollar,
Betray her to the highest bidder,
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
They have a language problem, so they say,
How to write "No Trespass" must grieve their heart full sore,
We got rid of one strange language now we are faced with many, many more,
For what suffer our patriots today?
OK, point taken. But don't I hear just a little bit of xenophobia there?
Don't the problems that we all face (see above) make national boundaries look silly? Try to think who your enemies really are.
I believe that the average global temperature was down by a full degree centigrade this last year. That wipes out 100 years of "global warming". Ya gotta keep up with the times. Sorta makes Martin's worries last year's washing.
i just read two novels by erin hart, the writer and the wife of paddy "with a pulse" o'brien of minneapolis. these wonderful novels are mysteries set in ireland featuring continuing characters who are forensic archeologists who recover bodies preserved for eons in bogs. they are very entertaining but also very beautifully written, with great sensitivity to the interplay between history, myth and land/climate...(also neat discussion of itm)....in any event, there is much info about bogs in these books, including discussion of how bogs are being destroyed & depleted, yet how environmental efforts to halt this have often come up against cultural resistance from rural folks who feel that cutting their own peat is part of their way of life, kind of like american indians who wish to do ritual hunts of endangered species such as whales. much food for thought....
on the climate change front.....i have noticed that many irish have seemed ambivalent about energetic eco-activism when it comes to problems generated by/in their home country. it is almost as if famine or hard times are so recent, that opposing the destructive side effects of development and other change wrought by the celtic tiger, is somehow suspect. it seems to be much easier to speak out about AIDS in africa or global warming, than, say, destruction of the tara archeological site, say......i am passionately for speaking out about global warming and applaud martin hayes' comments, but the effects of global warming on ireland's environment are equaled by the effects of homegrown behaviors as well, no?
Kilfarboy, the last time I was in Clare those five years ago, people I talked to just would not believe that there would be a housing boom in west clare. To me, it looked ripe for it, and just a matter of time. Accessibility seems to be the key plus proximity to the ocean - any ocean. People seem to rush lemming-like to get a place by the sea. The places you mention are prime examples I think. The other issue is employment growth in places like Ennis and Shannon. To me, after what we go through in big cities, driving 45 minutes to work from say Crosses of Annagh to Ennis is no big deal, especially with lack of traffic. You are going through the pain now of loss of amenity and traditional landscape that others in 'new world' countries constantly live with. That has been one of the attractions of going to Ireland, it was until recently, relatively unchanged (relative to what we go through).
Farmers here are converting their acreages into housing faster than you can say 'development application'. If land is within practical driving distance of a city - expect it to be a target. Your problem in west Clare is the small land area - some of our urban suburbs are bigger than the whole area there, and they are totally full of houses - no open space apart from the odd small public park area the whole distance of Clare north to south. It is the price of what we are told is "progress". If you object you are labelled "anti development". All the times I have been to Ireland I felt glad that I saw it before it began changing big time.
BTW, I know it might be a new, and possibly unpopular concept in Ireland, but development can be stopped or modified here on the basis of loss of "heritage" e.g. a homeowner who wishes to renovate their "heritage" house may not be permitted to - they usually get challenged by their own neighbours or the local council planning departments.
Another alternative is objections that can be raised by indigenous people is around the cultural significance of the site, that the place is a 'sacred site'.
If you can fit these sorts of strategies into activism, then you stand a chance of stopping it.
Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/17/2190938.htm
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
They should be able to keep on growing potatoes, if not in the same quantity as now. In Greece, and I imagine Egypt and Cyprus where the new ones come from, they just put them in earlier, and harvest them earlier, and very good they are too.
Salmon and sea-trout can adapt to changing patterns of river flow when it's a matter of their returning to spawn - they might stay out of the rivers till winter, and run up quickly then. No fun for the anglers, of course. But warming may bring them other hazards, from heat-kill of young fish to unacceptable ocean conditions, one way or another, for the adults.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Mr Hayes said, "I feel frightened and worried. I feel despair. It goes into every aspect of my life."
I feel the despair, but I am angry, because the only time that anything can be done to prevent disaster is *now*. What we do *now*, while things are still relatively stable, determines how bad things will get in the future.
Unfortunately, the 'things will adapt' argument you put, nicholas, is not correct. The climate won't just get drier and then stop and settle down, it'll keep on getting more extreme.
And what about all those people from Africa, Egypt, Greece, what happens to them ? Don't you think that if Ireland is habitable, they'll be trying to enter the country to survive ? Maybe put a wall around to keep them out, and just watch them die on the tele ? Germany could be as hot as central Australia in summer by 2050...10's of millions of desperate people trying to survive...
ceolachan called me an 'extremist', but I'm only saying the same thing as Jose Manuel d Barrosso, the President of the European Union ( and many other well-informed individuals across the spectrum of opinion ).
As far as the salmon and sea trout are concerned, the Ocean is becoming acidic (because of absorbed CO2) which will presumably have a big effect upon them and what they eat.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
wolfbird - I know not everything can adapt; I only mentioned two things (salmon and spuds) that might - the former to a more limited extent. I'll turn back to your post and mull it over.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
nicholas, (nothing personal against you, in case my post sounded that way). I have heard the 'things will adapt' argument from many people around here, my neighbours, who seem to put it forward as a form of wishful thinking without having any real understanding of the problems. Ecosystems we have, woodland, marsh, farmland, rivers, have had thousands of years to adapt to the general climate we have had for thousands of years. They can't change fast enough to keep up with the very rapid changes happening now and into the future. Everything gets out of sync. The small birds lay their eggs so that the hatching coincides with the emergence of caterpillars, etc. A week late or early means they starve and die. Farmers can cope with bad seasons, they always have, within limits. But it's a matter of degree and predictability. The woodlands of Ireland are a result of the wet climate. They will be changed out of all recognition. People are already growing Olive trees in S. England. But the ecology is one thing. Perhaps even more worrying is the global politics, because big powerful nations like Russia and India and Germany are not going to quietly let themselves disappear. If there is habitable parts of the planet available, if there is minerals and water and oil, they'll be fighting to get at it. I'm angry. Only one person in 14 in UK thinks this all is a 'serious problem'. I just wish they'd wake up, change their personal carbon footprints, put as much pressure as possible on leaders to get something done, fast.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
wolfbird - I think the main tenor of your post is true - that climatic conditions will rapidly and continually get more inimical, that the natural world will suffer and much of it will dwindle or die, and that the human world stands to incur huge catastrophes and great unrest. I haven't gone into it thoroughly, which means being able to judge the claims and counter-claims made within the scientific community, but do notice some of the things nature gets up to on my doorstep. I was interested in the article about how climate change might affect Ireland. On stays in Greece and Israel, I noticed how fertile seemingly barren summer landscapes can be in the cooler months. (Unless the Earth goes AWOL itself, we'll still at least have seasons, even in a chaotic climate.)
The chips might well be down for the salmon, except in the far North. Warmer oceans, a dearth of plankton and thus shoal-fish to eat, toxic blooms and/or jellyfish swarms might militate against them.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Yes, nicholas, it is difficult to get one's head around all the information. I trust the NASA science and the Hadley centre, as being the most reliable models for what the future climate will look like. But both have to operate under political constraints, so they can't say 'panic, panic!' but I did read on one forum where I lurk, the climate scientists discussing amongst themselves which might be the best parts of the world to take their families to, if they want to survive.
I don't think that we do necessarily have 'seasons'. What we get is hot patches in the middle of winter, freezing patches in the middle of summer, more extremes of everything, droughts, deluges, hurricanes. It's a bit like heating a pan of water. As the temperature increases everything swirls about faster and faster.
It's true that Greece and Israel can be very pleasant and fertile, but so, once, was the Sahara Desert.
What we have to imagine is that there will be extreme shortages of food, because the agriculture in many countries will be wrecked. It's easy to say that, well, we could fix that, if we extract purified water from the oceans, but the trouble is that would require huge energy, from oil or electricity. Makes the warming worse. And any of the individual problems could, perhaps, be solved if enough money and resources get thrown at them - like lots of new nuclear power plants - but we'll also be coping with rising sea levels, population increase, ( a third more people on the planet over next 30 years) wars, many millions more refugees,...there's nothing 'good' about any of it.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
My brain just got stuck. I had a random thought & the circuit shorted out. Hope someone can make sense of this & add something relevant;
Fertility? Depends on how you define the term.
Anthropocentically it would be based on soils, type of crops, availability of water. Now check out soil fertility in the rain forest. Not much soil. Plenty of fertility though.
And then . . .
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Check the fuse, Muse
I think soil types in rain forests vary a lot, so wrong to generalise, but tropical soils do work very differently to temperate soils. Many tropical forests are on very barren ground, but, over very long periods of time, they have evolved to recycle all nutrients very fast and very efficiently. It's a bit like juggling plates. Everything goes round and round beautifully.
Temperate ecosystems work more slowly because there is less energy (sunlight) going into the system. Even slower up in the tundra. There it's more like chucking one plate up in the air once a year. So they might be regarded as 'low fertility'.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Thinking about fertility and the landscape. People admire the Welsh (and Irish?) hills and think they are looking at 'wild nature'. It's ignorant garbage. They're looking at a man-made desert. The mountains were once covered in forest, the original wildwood. People cut down the tress to make grazing land. The unprotected soil washed away and down into the sea, leaving the hills rather infertile, kept bare by centuries of sheep and cattle which took what fertility there was, converted it into meat which walked down the drover's roads to the English cities, where it passed through human bodies and into the sewers and into the sea.
If you define nature as "the original condition of flora, fauna, and geology not altered by human activity", we have killed nature, because there is no place on the whole planet *anywhere* that is not changed by human activity, pollution, acid rain, global warming, plastic waste, etc, etc.
Some people - most people - seem to think that's just fine and dandy. I don't. I think it's a monstrous crime and we now get to pay for the foolishness...
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC43/Meadows.htm
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Wolfbird. You will recall a lengthy discussion a while ago on this subject. Please recall that Jeremy, rightly, removed it. Take the hint. Find another blog to discuss this questionable hypothesis. Google "hoax", perhaps.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by feardearg
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
I'm aware of your position, feardearg. Perhaps you'd like to comment (constructively?) upon Martin Hayes' remarks at the top of the thread ? Irish traditional music exists within the context of Irish culture, both in Ireland and distributed around the world. IMO, what happens to Irish traditional music in the coming years cannot be separated out from what happens to peoples and cultures more generally. I don't see you giving warnings to folks on this site not to discuss rugby, or the many other topics which arise which have no obvious connection to ITM or even to music. You're perfectly entitled to disagree with me on anything. You may think I'm mistaken or the victim of a hoax, but then you'll think the same of J. M. d Barrosso and Tony Blair and the folks from NASA who are saying the same things that I am saying.
(Quite embarrassing for me to be in such company,btw)
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Jeremy! I am really fighting the temptation here. Please accept my non-participation as a sign of repentance of any crime I have committed on this board in the past. I am trying very hard to walk the strait and narrow dispite the attempts of other sinners to draw me in.
Thanks,
fd
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by feardearg
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
I thought Martin Hayes' comments around the music being part of the climate was interesting. I've heard Altan say that the music is also part of the land - comes from a musical interpretation of the land, the climate, ecosystems, and people's part in it, especially those grown up in it, who have, perhaps a more intuitive resonance with the place they were born in, than those coming to it as adults.
I just wonder, if that's correct, what ITM would sound like now, if it was the product of a hot climate of centuries ago? Hmmm.
And just on the climate side of the argument, seems to me that a lot of people who think that things will be 'adaptable', might be missing the point that climate change is a continuum. It is not going to just get warmer up to a few more pleasant degree - and then stop. There is no 'stop', until the cause of the warming is ceased. I think the planet has its own ways of adjusting to imbalances - as harsh as the reality is.
If it gets so hot that the place is uninhabitable, at least on the surface perhaps, then the cause of global warming will be removed. That's the ultimate harshness.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Respect, feardearg !
I did think you were trying to shoot the messenger because you don't like the news.
I'll also withdraw from the thread as a conciliatory gesture, unless there's some specific technical matter or information where I feel I can be helpful. I'm not trying to pick a pointless quarrel.
Yes, Duijera Dubh. We can't do anything now about the warming that's already in the pipeline, which is certainly going make things very messy. Tony Blair is trying to get an international agreement for 50 percent reduction by 2050, but James Hansen, (who is acknowledged to be the most expert in the field) says we must get 90 percent by 20 50. What chance of that ?
Your mention of the landscape reminds me of Junior Crehan saying he couldn't emigrate, like some of his relatives, because of his love for the land. Now nothing is sacred anymore. They'll even run a motorway through Tara. Such people don't deserve this planet, IMO.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Yes, all the talk of percent this or that by 2020, 2050, intrigues me. By the look of news unfolding almost weekly, glacial melt, especially in Europe, Greenland, Antarctica is accelerating exponentially. I think the ice sheets could well be right off the table by then! We'll all be sitting around up to our waists in water, celebrating the partial cuts in carbon emissions.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
I've actually spent a bit of time walking around those areas where Junior Crehan lived in Clare. (My own people came from the area in famine times). The (rural) land has not changed, except the new houses dotted around the area, and the old ruined ones still there. I stood there looking out and around the district, with Slieve Callan, right there, and imagined his various tunes, and what if anything was, to me, a connection between what you see and feel in the land, and his tune(s). Seems to strike a resonance alright. Maybe it's the history of the place, or the ancientness, or something.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Ofcourse we like to think the rural land hasn't changed, it's an attractive thought, but ofcourse it has, Mount Callan covered in forestry that was planted during the fifties being maybe a case in point.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Maybe it was covered in forest, and maybe a lot of north west Clare long before that as well kilfarboy. An Clar bog deal, like.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
I read that in the North Pennines anyway - the bit of upland country nearest to me - the peat bog cover began to replace forest on the tops as a result of a shift to a cooler climate and higher rainfall, maybe around 6000 BC (not sure about this), with little if any human agency involved.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
I think it is something that nicholas, yes.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
and something *like* that.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
'Maybe it was covered in forest, and maybe a lot of north west Clare long before that as well kilfarboy. '
Hardly covered in sitka spruce I'd think. West Clare had it's cover of Oak, with the stumps still buried in the bogs still bearing witness(the few that haven't been pulled up and burned) As for North Clare, photographic record from the late 19th century shop a barren landscape where now the Burren is being covered by hazel shrub, quite significant changes there too.
My point ofcourse was the landscape has seen drastic changes even since Junior wrote his tunes. As was said earlier in this thread, the irish landscape is essentially a thoroughly manmade one. And while I would be the first to agree about the connection between music and people and places, it is good to realise the landscape is not static and set aside romantic notions that what you see is ancient and unchanged.
You say a 'few new houses': at this point more than 60% of all houses in Ireland have been built during the past ten years. I don't know when you last wandered here but you may find changes have been greater than any of us could have imagined possible fifteen years ago. And then I am still ignoring the windmills towering over the bogs south of Doo Lough.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
I guess I might be one of the lucky few then, kil, whose relatives are still on the same land that some of our forebears left in the 1840s. It hasn't changed, they don't put forestry on it, the old original ruined house is there with the original flags, there is plenty of bog deal around, there's a lovely view of Slieve Callan from one side and to the cliffs and Liscannor the other. No one has lived there for probably around 80 years now, but you can still see where the turf has been cut by them when they were there. Then there is the rath in the next field, reminding that people have been there for a very long time. All the fields around there are the same, enclosed as they are by the stone walls, but sure, some have got forestry now.
Maybe the forestry gives a better idea of what it might have looked like covered in the oak. But then again, you couldn't have seen Slieve Callan then, I guess. I don't think our area has changed a lot in the last number of hundreds of years, but sure before that, it would no doubt have been heavily wooded, maybe even up to the mid to late 1600s or so. Before that, I see that the area had hardly any English speakers, these being mainly down around the ports areas, so presumably there may not have been a lot of clearing going on until that time in history. Nice to be there - been there a number of times, latest around five or six years ago. Romantic now maybe, but no such luxuries back then.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
I am afraid Duijera Dubh you'll find the view is now being interfered with by the dozens of houses that have gone up around the Crosses of Annagh, the suburban sprawl all along the Mullagh Road, spilling over into Knockliscane but even if you manage to look past that, there's the growth around Spanish Point the sprawl of holidaycottages on the headlands of Liscannor that have completely overgrown all that was there even ten years ago.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
They are expecting a bright future for Greenland's farming (no joke). Yes, the culture is likely to change with peoples' living conditions. But those depend on the economy in general as well.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by kuec
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Ah yes, but Kilfarboy, the old Willie Week might have had a small influence don't you think in terms of encouraging the building of accommodation in the area. I know it's just a week, maybe stretched to two of rental income - but it must be pretty damn good income and reliable regardless of weather.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by the wounded hussar
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
I don't think you can blame the Willie Week for the building boom, what about the suburban estates that have overgrown Inagh, Corofin, Kilmaley, Tulla and similar villages all over the county and country? Or the irreparable damage done to Lahinch or Kilkee?
It's a state of mind you know, and the fastest growing population in the EU.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For what flowed Irelands blood in rivers,
That began when Brian chased the Dane,
And did not cease nor has not ceased,
With the brave sons of ´16,
For what died the sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
Was it greed that drove Wolfe Tone to a paupers death in a cell of cold wet stone?
Will German, French or Dutch inscribe the epitaph of Emmet?
When we have sold enough of Ireland to be but strangers in it.
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To those brave men who fought and died that Róisín live again with pride?
Her sons at home to work and sing,
Her youth to dance and make her valleys ring,
Or the faceless men who for Mark and Dollar,
Betray her to the highest bidder,
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
They have a language problem, so they say,
How to write "No Trespass" must grieve their heart full sore,
We got rid of one strange language now we are faced with many, many more,
For what suffer our patriots today?
Luke Kelly
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by nypiper127
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
OK, point taken. But don't I hear just a little bit of xenophobia there?
Don't the problems that we all face (see above) make national boundaries look silly? Try to think who your enemies really are.
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by kuec
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Xenophobia or fear of losing all that defines us? I'll go with the latter
# Posted on March 17th 2008 by nypiper127
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
I believe that the average global temperature was down by a full degree centigrade this last year. That wipes out 100 years of "global warming". Ya gotta keep up with the times. Sorta makes Martin's worries last year's washing.
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by Ron Foreman
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
i just read two novels by erin hart, the writer and the wife of paddy "with a pulse" o'brien of minneapolis. these wonderful novels are mysteries set in ireland featuring continuing characters who are forensic archeologists who recover bodies preserved for eons in bogs. they are very entertaining but also very beautifully written, with great sensitivity to the interplay between history, myth and land/climate...(also neat discussion of itm)....in any event, there is much info about bogs in these books, including discussion of how bogs are being destroyed & depleted, yet how environmental efforts to halt this have often come up against cultural resistance from rural folks who feel that cutting their own peat is part of their way of life, kind of like american indians who wish to do ritual hunts of endangered species such as whales. much food for thought....
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
on the climate change front.....i have noticed that many irish have seemed ambivalent about energetic eco-activism when it comes to problems generated by/in their home country. it is almost as if famine or hard times are so recent, that opposing the destructive side effects of development and other change wrought by the celtic tiger, is somehow suspect. it seems to be much easier to speak out about AIDS in africa or global warming, than, say, destruction of the tara archeological site, say......i am passionately for speaking out about global warming and applaud martin hayes' comments, but the effects of global warming on ireland's environment are equaled by the effects of homegrown behaviors as well, no?
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Kilfarboy, the last time I was in Clare those five years ago, people I talked to just would not believe that there would be a housing boom in west clare. To me, it looked ripe for it, and just a matter of time. Accessibility seems to be the key plus proximity to the ocean - any ocean. People seem to rush lemming-like to get a place by the sea. The places you mention are prime examples I think. The other issue is employment growth in places like Ennis and Shannon. To me, after what we go through in big cities, driving 45 minutes to work from say Crosses of Annagh to Ennis is no big deal, especially with lack of traffic. You are going through the pain now of loss of amenity and traditional landscape that others in 'new world' countries constantly live with. That has been one of the attractions of going to Ireland, it was until recently, relatively unchanged (relative to what we go through).
Farmers here are converting their acreages into housing faster than you can say 'development application'. If land is within practical driving distance of a city - expect it to be a target. Your problem in west Clare is the small land area - some of our urban suburbs are bigger than the whole area there, and they are totally full of houses - no open space apart from the odd small public park area the whole distance of Clare north to south. It is the price of what we are told is "progress". If you object you are labelled "anti development". All the times I have been to Ireland I felt glad that I saw it before it began changing big time.
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
BTW, I know it might be a new, and possibly unpopular concept in Ireland, but development can be stopped or modified here on the basis of loss of "heritage" e.g. a homeowner who wishes to renovate their "heritage" house may not be permitted to - they usually get challenged by their own neighbours or the local council planning departments.
Another alternative is objections that can be raised by indigenous people is around the cultural significance of the site, that the place is a 'sacred site'.
If you can fit these sorts of strategies into activism, then you stand a chance of stopping it.
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Martin Hayes on the changing Ireland
Hopefully, Spanish Point and Milltown Malbay don't end up looking like this, but...places like that usually do.
http://www.aerialphotographynational.com.au/cms/gallery/images/Collaroy-342y5-1.jpg
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by Duijera Dubh