Let’s get landlocked: the strange allure of the midlands

The midlands tend to be misunderstood, not just in Ireland but everywhere. We find it easier to describe extremities than that nebulous region in which the outer blends with the core. Misperceptions and negative stereotypes arise, which is definitely the case with the Irish midlands. Are they in need of interpretation and do artists have a role to play?

"We are not the handmaidens of Fáilte Ireland, if that's what you mean," says Teresa Doyle, an artist who was raised on the Laois-Offaly border and is now working in Co Westmeath.

“We are infused and informed by this place, but that doesn’t mean we have an obligation to explain it to others. For me, the real potency of this area is along the byroads: the quiet, uninterrupted world where people are living beautiful lives.”

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Adrian Duncan’s My Father’s Variation, which documents his family’s bungalow

The slam poet Marty Mulligan says "the allure of the midlands is that it has been ignored for so long". He takes Americans seeking connection with the real Ireland up the Hill of Uisneach in Westmeath, in partnership with Justin Moffitt, former manager of The Blizzards. "The energy of these old places is untouched and pure. We had elders from the Nez Perce tribe come the whole way to Uisneach just to see the Cat Stone because of its significance to North American culture. And in 2016 the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers is coming to conduct their ceremonies here because they feel this is where the real life force and energy is."

So, if the Indigenous Grandmothers rate the midlands, why do most Irish people dismiss them? “They’re blinded by negative preconceptions,” says Mulligan. “When I bring Americans up Uisneach and show them the Royal Palace dating from the first century, and Lough Lugh connected to the Sun God Lugh Lamfada of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the Cat Stone, an omphalos [naval stone] that marked the epicentre of Ireland, they are blown away. On this one site I can show them remnants of the Neolithic period, the Bronze Age, Iron Age and the arrival of St Patrick, right up to Daniel O’Connell and De Valera. Try to tell them that the midlands are a blank slate and they’ll laugh in your face.”

As a poet and modern seanchaí, Mulligan realises the importance of using his artistic skills to reinterpret our surroundings and present them in a new light.

The essence of Longford

For Gary Robinson, a Longford-based artist, the midlands are more a raw material than a message to be communicated. He uses the land in a physical capacity; he has brought slabs of Longford pavement concrete and mounds of earth from Carrigglas into the gallery. These artefacts are then combined with snatches of text from random conversations overhead on the streets of Longford in an attempt to convey the multifaceted essence of the region.

Robinson’s intense focus on the local – he will paint a particular field or tree repeatedly over years – is an attempt to mine down to the universal that lies at the core of the midland experience. That said, he insists that there is something unique about the place. “If I go anywhere else I can feel the difference. The work would not be the same.”

He also put an ad in the local papers asking readers to donate a word that encapsulated Longford. The list, which was projected on a screen in an old chemist in the town, was predictably varied: earthy, freedom, cairdiúil, mundane, home, uisce, parochial, tolerant, sham. Not perhaps the terms Fáilte Ireland would have chosen, but a fair representation.

Bungalow sensibilities

Adrian Duncan, a Longford-born artist and engineer, considers bungalows a modern form of artistic midlands expression. The stone and plaster cladding that people chose for their bungalows and the use of colour on plinths "reveals something about people's sensibility".

Duncan envisions a Bungalow Bliss Tour of Longford that would explore the influence of bungalow aesthetics on everything from Garda stations to schools and ESB substations. His photo work My Father's Variation documents his family's bungalow and its idiosyncratic variations on the standard: arrow slit windows like a Norman castle and a sittingroom window reminiscent of a shop vitrine.

Bungalows and motorways are some of the more obvious changes to the midlands landscape in recent decades. The old stereotype of an expanse of bogs, lakes, eskers and drumlins bordered by the Shannon and Slieve Blooms is being transformed.

For Rowena Keaveny, an artist from Birr, Co Offaly, the new settlers, Irish and non-Irish, are key protagonists in this transformation. They move in full of hope and fresh attitudes. "People are so passionate about where they live," says Keaveny, who asked residents and visitors to Kildare in 2009 to name their favourite spot for the Hidden Wonders of Kildare project. "I was amazed at the enthusiasm that came through with each nomination."

Among the nominees was a Curragh rifle mound, a pub sinking into a bog, and a Nepalese-Traveller cultural interaction project. “One woman selected the tiny village where she had gone to school, purely because in her whole life she had never encountered anywhere so beautiful.”

In 2014 Keaveny worked with Offaly’s Afghan and Syrian refugees, assisting them in creating art that explored the challenges and opportunities of relocation and shifting identities using traditional Afghan and Syrian crafts. “For them Offaly is a sanctuary,” says Keaveny. One of them captioned her artwork with the words: “We are used to living in a war zone, so we really needed the peace of living in this town. It is so calm here, so beautiful.”

In Keaveny’s contribution to the 2007 Finding Portlaoise project, she walked around Portlaoise carrying a placard with a blank piece of paper on it, a permanent marker and a camera, inviting people to verbalise how they felt about the region. “It was one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had,” she says. A parking warden simply wrote “Home”, a butcher wrote “Only for the blow-ins Portlaoise would be a dead town”, and a woman who hid behind her placard wrote “Portlaoise is very friendly. No taste in planning.”

Ursula Meehan, a former pavement artist, "from the leafy, green, seaward-facing suburbs of Dublin", took years to adapt to life in Westmeath before she began to fully appreciate the wealth of the peat landscape and culture.

“Realising the deep, generational connection between people and the land here has been a profound journey. I count myself very fortunate to live in such a beautiful part of Ireland. I regularly walk up the timeless Hill of Maol and each time my artistic soul is nourished.” Meehan recognises there “is probably an onus on us to be involved with presenting the true identity of the midlands to outsiders. The sensitivity and perceptivity of artists is a valuable asset to bring to county planning and decision-making.”

New understanding

“It’s fine that we in the midlands are not valued from a commercial perspective,” says Teresa Doyle. It’s better that way. A new understanding of the region would be a valuable thing, but we shouldn’t be expected to change to accommodate something we are not.”

In 2013, CIE Tours International added, for the first time, midlands destinations to its itinerary: Athlone and Glasson village.

It’s a first step, perhaps, away from the focus of tourism on the coastline. The creation of the Luan contemporary art gallery on the Shannon and the renovation of Athlone Castle has begun the process of the midlands becoming a destination, not just a stop on the way to somewhere else.