A Place Where Ghosts Dwell

It is exactly two years ago since I graduated with a PhD in Art and Design from Manchester School of Art, completing my doctoral research practice film A Place Where Ghosts Dwell, a film I would loosely describe as an essay film. Where Ghosts Dwell explores the relationship between my hometown Longford as a marginalised place, and post-property collapse unfinished housing estates and vacant commercial property as troubling spaces. I refer to them as ‘ghost developments’, and their prevalence in Longford is what drew me back to my hometown to conduct fieldwork research and film production in the historically significant year of 2015 (the year of the same-sex marriage equality referendum). Whilst there, I finally came to terms with my personal history, reconciled and fully embraced my sexual identity, and learnt to rediscover my birthplace – a place that had deeply damaged me in the past. Indeed, while some people in Longford have read the film as a negative portrayal of the place, I feel it is anything but. A read through my PhD thesis will confirm my nuanced but ultimately positive appraisal of Longford, a town which is fascinating for very many reasons. (see PhD text here: https://goo.gl/kfVJTo )

 

A Place Where Ghosts Dwell from Paddy Baxter on Vimeo.

Notes from a Marginal Place

 

On the 22^nd of May the Irish electorate will vote in a referendum on same-sex marriage equality, extending the constitutional protection of civil marriage to all citizens of the Republic without distinction as to their sex or sexuality. This of course is a historic moment for Irish society; if the constitutional amendment is passed it will represent a further advancement for tolerance and plurality in the Republic, and hopefully be another death knell to the repressive Catholic guilt ridden and socially conservative Ireland that came into being in the early years of independence, and of which lurks still in the psycho-body of much of Ireland’s social fabric. Referenda on social and civil matters (divorce, and the continuing hot potatoe of abortion) are a common feature of the Republic’s political landscape.  Traditionally these referenda have evidenced a distinct urban/rural divide in the country- the urban social progressive vote vs the rural conservative articulation. However, there remains the possibility of a breakdown of this sharp divide, due to not only an increasingly socially tolerant, less faith orientated Irish citizenry but furthermore as a consequence of the spatial urbanization of rural Ireland post-Celtic Tiger, albeit a precarious, uneven and disjointed sort of urbanization.

My Bunker in the Woods

Access to Carrigglas Manor grounds is relatively painless. The old wall that surrounds the 660 acre site is a thing of crumbling beauty. Although signs alert you to how dangerous it is, few of these inform you how also how porous it is.  My dog and I enter from an opening in a fenced-off break in the wall, past those signs, some concrete bollards, climb carefully down and up a small mossy slope into the woodlands of Carrigglas manor, mindful of the stills camera I’ve brought with me. I have visited the failed development at Carrigglas a few times before, however, on this occasion I am searching out the old manor building itself .  A clearing through the woods, in fact a well-heeled woodland path is flanked on either side by a thick body of beech trees and sturdy ash.  In my work as a craftsperson I regularly go for long wanders in many of County Longford’s unspoilt and tranquil woodlands to gather organic materials I use to create my jewelry. So I was pleasantly surprised at this private woodlands at Carrigglas; the scale and undisturbed beauty of the place.  Towards the end of the pathway as a clearing in the woods appeared to be on the horizon an even greater shock was in store.

Ruin Fascination

I spent a lot of time drifting through fields as a child; sometimes with others, but often alone. Growing up in the countryside in the 1980s children had the benefit of space to wander- concerns about the safety of children playing out alone for hours were less prevalent than today, whilst fences and other physical barriers to free movement were either not present or fairly malleable. Added to that we didn’t have digital technologies and social networks to augment our hours, so the lengthy stroll in the landscape was a common pursuit for rural kids- at least it was for me.

Ruined structures in which to spark a furtive childhood imagination were in no shortage on these rambles: the most common were long derelict two storey farm houses and ruined cottages, many of these deserted buildings were used as livestock barns. Some were the result of a legacy of migration from rural Ireland, changes in agricultural production practices, or simply the vestiges of time, growth, change, decay, and renewal. No matter the cause, I loved these spaces- they were entrancing, full of strange bygone objects, brand-names no longer in existence, old withered photographs and letters, archaically fashioned furniture and fittings.