Landscape and Society in Contemporary Ireland

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without generous financial help from family and friends; Pauline and Andy Smith, Patricia Buesnel, Janet and Graham Webb, Camilla Beglan and John O’Connell. I also wish to thank Dennis Latimer and Biddy White Lennon for their encouragement and advice when I first got the idea of the book. Later on Paul Caprani reviewed a manuscript and his enthusiastic response gave me the confidence to submit for publication. The final chapters deal with on-going landscape initiatives. In this regard I am grateful to Dr Brendan Dunford of the Burren Farming for Conservation Programme for his views on current progress in the Burren, to Susanne Forslund and her colleague Ann Moreau in Kalmar County, Sweden for their observations about Southern Öland and to Dr Mary Tubridy and Deborah Tiernan for bringing me up to date on the Howth Special Amenity Area Order. I also wish to acknowledge the contribution of the anonymous reviewers of Cork University Press. Needless to say, while the book benefits from these different viewpoints, its contents are entirely my responsibility. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In 1999 Clare County Council put up signs beside the access roads to my neighbourhood that welcomed motorists to ‘the Burren Protected Landscape’. The message on the signs surprised me because the Burren is not a ‘protected landscape’ in any generally accepted sense of the term. I used to pass one of the signs on my way to work and was able to monitor the landscape change around the sign on a daily basis. Shortly after the sign went up the old dry-stone wall beside it was replaced by a concrete post-and-rail fence. This was part of an EUfunded road improvement scheme being implemented by the council. introduction Chapter 1 ...