It is cynical, though valid, to suggest that much of the current interest in Ireland's heritage is tourism-driven. Ancient monuments are an attraction for the visitors in search of culture. History has also certainly caught the imagination of developers and planners. Existence of ringforts or castles, obvious signs of past settlement, are now used to confer instant personality on a new housing estate.
Irish settlement patterns are part of a complex story. It is one in which elements as diverse as ancient field-systems, ringforts, the role of the town marketplace, the use of maps, the final clearance of woodlands and scrublands, the regional impact of Catholicism in the 18th century, the cultural statement expressed by placenames all have a part. Added to this is the devastation of post-famine Ireland.
Settlement in Ireland was hugely influenced by three distinct phases of town creation; the Norman period, followed by the late 16th and 17th century Plantations, and the impact of the emerging landlord class during the 18th century. But the development of Irish towns has even older roots reaching back to the early Christian period when monasteries at places such as Kildare, Kells, Glendalough, Cashel and Armagh effectively performed a sophisticated range of market, educational and political functions. It is easy to forget Clonard in Co Meath was a thriving European university centre by the 6th century. Also significant is the fact the monastic communities certainly recognised the balance of sacred and secular.
Until the arrival of the Vikings, the monastic proto-towns were the economic and cultural, never mind spiritual, centres of early medieval Irish life. Further dramatic changes occurred in the late 12th century as the Normans began to assert themselves. With them came the town charter which led to an often economically unsustainable flurry of urban development. In some instances the Normans made effective use of existing monastic and Viking centres, they also settled under the protective shadow of feudal castles and at times created their own planned towns, often walled and frequently spanning rivers. By then the town wall had acquired an administrative as well as military or defensive purpose.
Land would be further parcelled off and divided in Munster, Ulster, the Midlands and within and beyond the perimeter of the Pale during the plantations. The Plantations failed politically, but in terms of settlement this failure is less obvious. While villages were destroyed by colonisation, the process also initiated a wave of new towns and villages. Far less traumatic, if no less significant, was the later establishment of the estate towns as the emergence of the Big House and demesne replaced the earlier castle.
Historical geographer Robin Glasscock of Queen's University founded the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement in 1969 and to date it has inspired an impressive body of original interdisciplinary research. Practicality, lucidity and scholarship appear to be qualities shared by the academics the group has attracted. Their combined talents are brilliantly showcased in A History of Settlement in Ireland in which a team of specialists, including John Andrews, Gabriel Cooney, Charles Doherty, Matthew Stout and Anngret Simms examine how history, chance and politics combined with the practical aspects of how people in the process of living alter, in some cases, create, their immediate environment.
This book testifies to society's ongoing modification of landscape. The text draws on a series of chronological papers delivered at a conference marking the 20th anniversary of the group. Yet because of the richness of current Irish archaeology, historical geography, geography and local history writing, as well as the success of the Royal Irish Academy's ongoing project, The Irish Historic Towns Atlas, William Nolan's heroic History and Society series, a complete county by county study of Ireland, as well as An Historical Geography of Ireland (Dublin, 1993) edited by Graham and Proudfoot and the Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape (Cork, 1997) books such as this which might at one time have seemed too specialist for the general reader - and admittedly its design is discreet rather than overly inviting - will be recognised as accessible and exciting.
The new breed of geographer, historian, historical geographer and archaeologist, inspired by the multidisciplinary legacies of R.L. Praeger and Frank Mitchell, are bringing a valuable overview to the study of their respective specialities. This trend is well illustrated by the Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape in which a team of specialists writing for the widest possible audience examined the collective impact of geology and man on the shaping, in some ways, the making, of the given Irish landscape.
Among the issues raised in A History of Settlement in Ireland is Kevin Whelan's extremely pertinent observation "Despite its undoubted significance, the 18th century has long been neglected by historical geographers". He attributes this to that period's lack of major benchmark surveys. Stressing its importance he quotes Louis Cullen: "The Irish man-made landscape is essentially one of the 18th century." Looking further back, Bill Graham points out that the absence of the town in medieval Gaelic Ireland at a time it was flourishing throughout Europe should be examined. Elsewhere Patrick J. Duffy argues: "It might be said that it is the living, evolving landscape, laid down over the past century or so, which has the greatest potential impact on all earlier legacies and which will influence future directions in settlement."
Post-famine Ireland was shaped by emigration and rural depopulation, both in turn influenced and determined by a century-long shift to a low-labour cattle economy. Country towns in general, as Duffy points out, underwent a slow stagnation from the 1840s, "indeed Ireland's `urban' revolution had to wait until the 1960s". The population factor is crucial towards reaching any understanding of the settlement patterns prevailing throughout the 20th century, and added to that of course is the final collapse of the estate system.
Demographic decline had a profound impact on settlement across the country. Added to this is the emergence of the bungalow and increasingly the imposition of modern urban housing estates on rural landscapes.
Simms describes settlements "as part of the continuous remaking of the Irish landscape". Anyone with an interest in Ireland's physical and cultural evolution should, indeed must, read this book.
A History of Settlement in Ireland, edited by Terry Barry is published by Routledge, price £30 in UK