Old Ireland meets New Ireland: Walking the Cow in a time of change
This photo wonderfully encapsulates a moment in time when Ireland was moving from being a relatively slowing moving rural society of small family farms to becoming a fast-paced more stressful car-based urban environment where small rural villages were being transformed into large suburbs of cities characterised by urban sprawl.
There is nothing romantic about poverty or a subsistence economy. But I think that in the process of change, we lost a sense of almost spiritual connection with the land as well as a sense of place and of community solidarity.
Photo shows Colman (Colie) Faherty of Freeport/Saorphort walking his cow through the village of Barna/Bearna, probably sometime between late 1970s and the mid 1980s. Colie died in 2004.
Thanks to Evan Ryan for the image and the information on Colie, and to Martin Whyte for taking the photograph.
Old Ireland meets New Ireland: Walking the Cow in a time of change
This photo wonderfully encapsulates a moment in time when Ireland was moving from being a relatively slowing moving rural society of small family farms to becoming a fast-paced more stressful car-based urban environment where small rural villages were being transformed into large suburbs of cities characterised by urban sprawl.
There is nothing romantic about poverty or a subsistence economy. But I think that in the process of change, we lost a sense of almost spiritual connection with the land as well as a sense of place and of community solidarity.
Photo shows Colman (Colie) Faherty of Freeport/Saorphort walking his cow through the village of Barna/Bearna, probably sometime between late 1970s and the mid 1980s. Colie died in 2004.
Thanks to Evan Ryan for the image and the information on Colie, and to Martin Whyte for taking the photograph.