Reconnecting Cultural Landscapes: Dún an Óir, West Cork, Ireland

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper discusses ways to reconnect late medieval castles in Ireland with their wider cultural landscapes in the present day as well as in the past. It approaches landscapes in the widest possible terms, not only the physical landscapes in which a castle was built, but the social landscape of the medieval period, the succeeding cultural and literary landscapes, and the social landscape to which it may belong today. The paper focuses on a late medieval tower house called Dún an Óir with the aim of capturing a fuller understanding of the place in the past and the present. Dún an Óir is a place at risk, on the edge of Ireland, on the brink of the West Cork cliffs and thus at the mercy of the increasingly frequent Atlantic storms, surges and high winds. As well as using familiar archaeological methods, as far as they are feasible at this site, the research described in this paper embraces sources sometimes overlooked as of secondary value, such as placename evidence and contemporary local accounts.