Down: History and Society Edited by Lindsay Proudfoot, Geography Publications, 698pp, £40
Many Irish people when asked where they come from specify their home county. What is it that gives a county its sense of identity? Counties were introduced into Ireland for the convenience of an English administration from as early as the late 13th century. Down only became a county in 1570 as part of the British plantation settlement in the area.
Lindsay Proudfoot, geographer at Queen's University Belfast, acted as editor for this volume and he also painted the striking picture of the rolling fields and distant mountains on the cover of the book. He has assembled a group of scholars, historians, geographers and archaeologists, whose essays explore different aspects of society and settlement in Co Down from prehistory to the present.
He is a sensitive editor, who is very much aware of the historical antagonisms in the county. In his introduction he talks about the way in which the material world inhabited by the men and women of Down was driven by their inner world of perception, faith and belief. He looks upon counties as agents of modernisation being used by a centralised government for the purposes of taxation, the judiciary and army. These aspects would not warm the cockles of one's heart. It is more likely that features of Gaelic culture, for example the GAA, were influential in bringing about a feeling of solidarity within a county.
The book is well illustrated with many maps and a large number of black and white plates showing such different features as estate houses, and village streets with large barrels under slate roofs ready to catch the rainwater. It is a pity that no dates are available for a number of these photos.
The detailed general index begins, surprisingly enough, with a reference to Thomas a Kempis, born on the lower Rhine, who is reputed to be the author of the most important medieval devotional book, De imitatione Christi, which was translated into Irish in 1762 most probably by the Dean of the Catholic diocese of Dromore, so Ciaran Devine tells us. This incident symbolises well how at any time the horizons of the people in Down reached beyond their county boundaries.
The index of places has its own fascination. Frequent references must indicate places which matter beyond their own immediate local context. In this category you will find the names of larger towns as well as the names of distinct geographical regions, for example the Ards Peninsula, Lecale, Mourne Mountains and Strangford Loch. Ulster has 94 references, Ireland 118, England 39, Belfast 69, Dublin 42 and London 12.
The contributors come from places as far apart as New York and Uppsala in Sweden, but most of them write from Belfast. The essays are scrupulously researched. Space allows me to mention only a few, which were of particular interest to me. Among those are Anne Hamlin's exploration of the early church in Co Down, and D.N. Dumville's reconstruction of St Finnian's life. H. O'Sullivan's chapter on the replacement of Irish customary law after 1601 by English common law and the transformation of Irish lords to loyal vassals of the crown has the stuff of real drama. The chapters on the United Irishmen (N. Curtin) and on Protestantism (M. Hill) as well as on the Catholic community (O. Rafferty) in 19th-century County Down have resonances with the present-day political situation.
The discussion on the linen industry (M. Cohen) brings out one of the major differences in rural development between the northern and southern half of Ireland. And finally, L. Proudfoot's essay on land ownership and improvement (1700-1845) provides an exciting discourse on the question whether the great country-houses in County Down were the expression of conspicuous consumption of a colonial class, or the expression of a sense of insecurity, which they tried to overcome by erecting impressive buildings which were to signal the permanency of their position in Ireland.
The Down volume is number 10 in the Irish County Series and the first for a Northern county. William Nolan is the general editor of this series and he, and his group of committed editors and authors, deserve our appreciation for this series. Its big brother in England is the Victoria County History, which started in 1901, supported by public money, providing several volumes per county, and it still goes on. The contributions are standardised in their coverage from county to county, facilitating comparative studies. In contrast, the Irish volumes tell stories as their authors wish to tell them. What they lack in academic standardisation they gain in originality and the county emerges with the mosaic of its own social and cultural fabric, portrayed with critical affection. These county volumes should become companions in every house and are a must for every public library. They represent Irish scholarship at its very best.
Anngret Simms is Professor of Geography at University College Dublin