This week I’m going to draw up a list of local people that I need to talk to and try and get hold of some archive material. A trip to the local history archive in Ennis is probably on the cards at some point. But for now I’m going to walk around the lanes with my sketchbook and attempt to fit evertything together.
As well as documentary stuff about the old pople I want to emphasise my own motivations and response to Lurraga. The general theory round here is that I probably tend to romanticise the landscape more than any of the people who actually work on the land. It brings me back to the idea of the classic travel writing tradition – there is a whiff of colonialsim about an Englishman documenting scenes of Irish rural life. That fascination with otherness. I’ve just got to be open about that.
The images I have in my head at the moment are of a farmer cutting the hay with a scythe, a holy well and a great big bright yellow JCB.