Irish ruins ancient and new: Ghost estates, megaliths and human relations with the rest of nature

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter considers the environmental damage related to Ireland’s recent ‘ghost estates’, placing this disastrous waste of resources in the long historical context of ancient ruins that also dot the land.

Methodology/approach

It considers ruins from an ecocritical perspective, as material artefacts attesting directly to people’s relationship with their environment.

Findings

From ancient megaliths and sacred sites to imposing castles, Ireland’s impressive ruins ignite romantic reflections in many. Yet, just like the modern ruins of ghost estates, they also tell of an often oppressive relationship between human cultures and the natural environment. Ironically perhaps, stone circles and tombs that seem to speak of people living in much closer relation to non-human nature than we moderns do are also associated with the environmental scourge of deforestation. Yet, they at least stand testament to an ethic of timelessness and robust building, as well as resistance to a seemingly irresistible process of capitalistic modernisation; the recent ruins are devoid of such ethical commitments. Given this, however, creative responses should also be noted to the logic of the ghost estates, including Cloughjordan’s Ecovillage and the NamaLab project.

Practical and social implications

Three sets of responses that all work more realistically with a recognition of the limits of sustainable development are considered in the conclusion: Transition Towns, an Ecovillage and architectural reutilisation of defunct buildings.

Citation

Berry, G. (2013), "Irish ruins ancient and new: Ghost estates, megaliths and human relations with the rest of nature", Environmental Philosophy: The Art of Life in a World of Limits (Advances in Sustainability and Environmental Justice, Vol. 13), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 175-195. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-5030(2013)0000013012