Problems with drawing lines: Theo-geographies of the Catholic parish in Ireland

While people in Catholic parishes in Ireland appear keenly aware of parish boundaries, these understandings are more often oral than cartographic. There is no digital map of all of the Catholic parishes in Ireland. However, the institutional Catholic Church insists that no square kilometre can exist outside of a parish boundary. In this paper, I explain a process whereby the Catholic parishes of Ireland were produced digitally. I will outline some of the technical challenges of digitizing such boundaries. In making these maps, it is not only a question of drawing lines but mapping people’s understanding of their locality. Through an example of one part of the digitisation project, I want to talk about how verifying maps with local people often complicates something which may have at first sight seemed simple. The paper ends on a comparison with how other communities of interest are territorialised in Ireland and elsewhere to draw out some broader theoretical and theological issues of concern.

Dunisky, Co. Cork: a refuge souterrain?

The townland of Dunisky (Dún Uisce, 'water fort', see Ó Murchadha 2001, 98) is situated about 2.5 miles to the SE of Macroom, Co. Cork (Ill. 1). It is also the Civil Parish of Dunisky, and is located in the Barony of West Muskerry. In extent, it contains over one thousand acres. It was first surveyed by the Ordnance Survey of Ireland in 1841-42. An earlier survey of the townland survives, drawn by the Cork cartographer, Patrick Aher. It is dated 1791, and shows sub-denominations.

Canon Ulick Bourke: cultural nationalism, popular politics and the Knock apparition

Accounts of the Knock Apparition, academic and devotional, always start by relating that the Virgin Mary, St Joseph, and St John the Evangelist appeared to fifteen people on a rainy Thursday evening at the south gable of Knock chapel, Co. Mayo, on 21 August 1879. They usually mention that the Land War was in progress. Despite the fact Knock supposedly receives one and a half million visitors a year, until three decades ago no scholar had examined accounts of the apparition. Recent work has sought to define the Knock Apparition in light of the Land War, the ‘devotional revolution’, which took place in Irish Catholicism in the quarter century prior to the apparition, and the influence of the parish priest, Archdeacon Bartholomew Cavanagh. This thesis acknowledges these factors, but contends that the single greatest force in shaping accounts of the apparition was Canon Ulick Joseph Bourke, one of the three priests on the commission of investigation into Knock. Furthermore, this thesis proves that Bourke’s role as a central figure in influencing the later Gaelic revival has been overlooked by scholars of cultural nationalism. By examining Bourke’s cultural nationalism and views on antiquity and language, as well as his politics and reaction to the Land War, this thesis argues that Bourke sought to create an orthodox version of the apparition which could be reconciled to his views on Irish Catholic identity, while serving as a bulwark against threats to the temporal power of the clergy. In addition to influencing accounts of the apparition through his role in interviewing the witnesses and recording their testimony, Bourke further shaped the narrative of the apparition by controlling its dissemination, to the extent that all accounts of Knock are based on a text largely created by him.