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Looking at representations of the Irish landscape in contemporary literature and the arts, this volume discusses the economic, political and environmental issues associated with it, questioning the myths behind Ireland´s landscape, from the first Greek descriptions to present day post Celtic-Tiger architecture.

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Acknowledgments List of Illustrations List of Maps List of Tables Notes on Contributors Introduction; M.Mianowski PART I: BIRTH OF THE IRISH LANDSCAPE AND THE MYTH OF LOSS From Ancient Geographers to the Journey of the Argonauts: Ierne Island (Ireland), a Landscape Island Between Two Worlds; L.André Landscape, Senchas and the Medieval Irish Mind; D.Hamon Translating the Facts of Landscape into the Facts of Language: Ethnoecological Ruminations on Glossopoiesis in Early Ireland; F.Bennett Language and Landscapes of Ireland; J.McCabe PART II: CONTEMPORARY LITERARY MYTHS Derek Mahon´s Seascapes Mediated through Greece: Antiquity in Modernity, Nature in Abstraction; J.Kruczkowska Fictionalising Division: The Urban Landscapes of Belfast, Beirut and Berli; S.Schwerter ´The post-past city´: Apocalyptic Cityscapes and Cultural Stagnation in the Fiction of Sean O´Reilly; F.McCann Lived and Learned Landscapes: Literary Geographies and the Irish Topographical Tradition; N.Cronin Landscapes in Movement: Cosmopolitanism and the Poetics of Space in Colum McCann´s Fiction; S.Mikowski PART III: BORDERSCAPING Monumental Landscapes: Riding the Boundaries of an Independent Ireland with the Early Sinn Féin Movement; M.Staunton Irish Nationalism and the Natural Insular Landscape of Ireland Before Partition: Insularity Versus the Wishes of the Inhabitants; P.Cauvet The Irish Border as a Cultural Landscape; C.McCall Rural Development in the Border Areas: From ´borderscaping´ to Cross-border Planning; M.C.Considère-Charon PART IV: LOCAL HERITAGE AND GLOBAL SPEED The Altered Edge. The Impact of the Construction Boom on the Landscape of the Urban Periphery; G.Cahill Our landscape, Our Heritage - Building Toward a New Legislative Approach to Empower Local Communities; M.Starrett Standardizing Terminology for Landscape Categorisation - an Irish Agri-environment Perspective; J.Whelan et al The Metropolitan Cork Green Belt: Synergies and Tensions Between Strategic and Local Understandings of Landscape Value; B.O´Sullivan & K.Ray PART V: CONTEMPORARY VISIONS AND CREATIONS: THE CHALLENGE OF ART The Renaissance of the Forest in Contemporary Art in Ireland; Y.Scott The Geography of the Place in Doherty´s Work; C.Grout Sculpture in the Irish Landscape; P.Murphy Transforming the City: The Stakes of Cultural and Artistic Landscaping in Post Conflict Belfast; H.Alfaro Ballymun in Dermot Bolger´s Plays: Beyond the Urban Landscape; E.Dumay Belfast: An Eyeless City; C.Crochet & C.Giriat Index

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´This is an engaging and tightly conceived collection of essays which will open up new ground and forge fresh connections in the best sense of interdisciplinary scholarship.´

- Aaron Kelly, University of Edinburgh, UK

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