In the foreground of the play, `Translations', the audience is presented with the British Ordnance Survey of Ireland, a process of mapping, renaming and anglicising.
The British army needed more accurate maps of Ireland. There was growing dissatisfaction among taxpayers and government officials with existing, inadequate surveys of land sizes and values in Ireland so the government consented to organise the first complete ordnance survey map, at a scale of six inches to the mile.
Various reasons suggesting why Britain wanted rectified maps of Ireland were proposed. Was Britain bringing the benefits of greater scientific knowledge of map-making and mathematics to Ireland? Or marking out confiscated land and providing the army with more accurate information about troubled areas and places where rebels could hide? The later suggestion being more probable.
Work began in the north-west of Ireland in 1827 and was completed in 1833 by the ordnance survey unit of the Royal Engineers.
In addition to producing a more accurate map, the engineers were also given the task of standardising the place-names. The survey teams were often divided about what names to give the town-lands, particularly whether they should try to capture the meaning of Gaelic names.
`Translations' is largely accurate in its depiction of the work of the surveyors.
Captain Lancey tells us of how they are conducting a `general triangulation which will embrace detailed hydrographic and topographic information' with aims to collect `up-to-date and accurate information' and for `taxation' purposes.
Some of them, like Lieutenant Yolland, did become interested in the history of the places, which they were mapping and were sensitive to how the local residents felt about the permanent alterations to the ontology of their land. Yolland acknowledges a sense of loss but Owen is concerned in the operation to `standardise' names because the people are `confused' and modernise, bringing his homeland out of the past.
The engineers however, did not carry arms and were never called upon to conduct evictions, searches or any form of physical violence against the local populations, like the fictitious engineers in `Baile Beag'.
Friel seems to be conflating deliberately the destruction of the Irish place-names by the engineers with the destruction of Irish people's houses, farms and livelihoods by colonising soldiers.
Every minute detail of Irish land is being mapped. Mapping is a way of controlling, establishing ownership, colonising and shaping the land, and as such it becomes a metaphor for the colonising of a culture and a people.
The writer classified this group of Irish people according to their characteristics. This group was highly ferocious and exhibited an alacrity and lust of land that originated from the Northern part of Ireland. This group was comprised of individuals who were conservative Christians who loved living in their own cliché of clans. They were also very cruel and intolerant towards Indians. Because of their characteristics, they were referred to as settlers. Their characteristics ma...
...y a majority of the cost with little aid from England. The English essentially made the Irish a territory not an equal who would have to save itself from the famine brought by the trading ships from Mexico.
Garrett, Peter K., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Dubliners. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: 1968.
In Heaney's book of poetry entitled Opened Ground, Heaney shows the readers many different ways in which English rule and influence effected and changed the lives of different people in Ireland. For example, in Two Lorries, Heaney describes a man who is a coal deliverer and his love for Heaney's mother. As the poem progresses, we can see a metamorphosis in the lorry. As the political situation in Ireland escalates and war between different religious factions grows more immanent, the lorry changes from a man who falls in love with Heaney's mother to a raving political and religious war type man who needs to become involved in the skirmish between the religious groups and by doing this eventually blows...
Transformations are altering certain thematic concerns of the original text, yet still retaining much of the storyline. The process of transformation requires some conscious decisions which shape and re-shape the meaning, and must be justified in order to execute them. . This is explored in ‘BBC’s Shakespeare Re-told: Much ado about Nothing”, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s original playwright “Much ado about Nothing”
The Irish and British governments fought for many years over the ownership of Northern Ireland. Britain had main control over Northern Ireland, and Ireland did not think that was fair. Be...
Not a unified and separate country until 1921, Northern Ireland has had cultural, financial, and economic that makes it stand affront from the rest of the Emerald Isles. With its close proximity to England and the immigration all through the 1600s of English and Scottish, Northern Ireland has become more anglicized th...
As a result, the famine is an event still discussed and debated today; influencing Irish politics and its position within the British Isles. Questions about morality and blame have led to historians to attempt to critique British and Irish response during the famine, whilst cataloging the short term and long-term consequences. Although most blame is primarily placed on the regional and national governments response to the famine crisis, the actions of the State do not provide an adequate analysis of early nineteenth century social structures which would shape Ireland both economically, socially and politically in the years before the famine. The establishment of the Union in 1801 led to a free market system and s...
Historical geographer JB Harley wrote an essay on Map Deconstruction in 1989, in which Harley argues that a map is more than just a geographical representation of an area, his theory is that we need to look at a map not just as a geographical image but in its entire context. Harley points out that by an examination of the social structures that have influenced map making, that we may gain more knowledge about the world. The maps social construction is made from debate about what it should show. Harley broke away from the traditional argument about maps and examined the biases that govern the map and the map makers, by looking at what the maps included or excluded. Harley’s “basic argument within this essay is that we should encourage an epistemological shift in the way we interpret the nature of cartography.” Therefore Harley’s aim within his essay on ‘Deconstructing the Map’ was to break down the assumed ideas of a map being a purely scientific creation.
The setting for this novel was a constantly shifting one. Taking place during what seems to be the Late Industrial Revolution and the high of the British Empire, the era is portrayed amongst influential Englishmen, the value of the pound, the presence of steamers, railroads, ferries, and a European globe.
On the 14th of September in the year 1607 the Earl of Tyrone Hugh O’Neill and the Earl of Tyrconnel Rory O’Donnell fled Ireland alongside officials, their families and numerous Gaelic chieftains. They left Ireland from Rathmullen in County Donegal. This flee was to become known as the flight of the Earls. They arrived in the Spanish Netherlands and then eventually made their way to Rome. The Flight of the Earls led to the most drastic form of the British government’s policy of plantation in Ireland. The Flight of the Earls has remained as one of the most memorable events in the history of Ireland. But what exactly were the reasons for the Flight of the Earls? The causes have been debated by historians with different interpretations as to why they fled but it is clear that the influence of the Earls in Ireland have been diminished greatly in the years prior to the Flight of the Earls. This essay seeks to clarify the reasons for the decline in power of the Earls in Ireland through exploration of the solidification of British rule in Ireland, along with key events in the years prior to the Flight of the Earls such as Hugh O’Neill’s campaign and onto the nine years war and the Battle of Kinsale and the Treaty of Mellifont after the Battle of Kinsale.
The claim being discussed here is that the only way a map or a way of representing things can be useful is if it simplifies the knowledge that the actual territory gives, that is, if it reduces the salient i...
Esteemed members of the Board, in this report I intend to convincingly show you that the borders in question absolutely need to be redrawn. The borders I speak of are those of the British oppression of Northern Ireland. For years upon years the British have possessed political control over the people of Northern Ireland. I will make it obvious to you that the strong Catholic religion throughout Northern Ireland has forced the people to oppose British control. As most of you know, the official and majority religion of Great Britain is that of Protestantism. And the deeply faithful Irish have always felt that they were looked down upon by the British for refusing to practice their form of Christianity. But, we will discuss this later as the current issue is that of the culture of the people of Ireland. My argument is that the Irish culture is the same throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is currently under British control. Because the Irish people share the same culture and the same geographic area, being located on the small island, they deserve and are justly due to have their entire country reunited. I feel that the British must cede Northern Ireland back to the Irish people to reunite the full country.
Foster, R.F.,ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland. Oxford University Press: Oxford, New York, 1989.
McCann et al. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994, 95-109).