ABSTRACT
Landscape, as the heading of a recent overview on social landscapes (Gosden and Head 1994) put it, is a usefully ambiguous concept. A distinction is frequently made between physical and cultural or social landscapes, but from a human perspective it could be argued that the primary way in which we should view landscapes is as social phenomena. We perceive, understand and create the landscape around us through the filter of our social and cultural background and milieu (Evans 1981:8; Tilley 1994:25-6; Schama 1995:12). Individuals and groups from different cultures may see the same landscape in a very different light. Thus, for example, in the eighteenth century there were competing perceptions of the Irish landscape (Cooney 1997:32). The traditional Gaelic perception was based on oral traditions, on the landscape as embodying the long history and genealogy of families and events. By contrast the Ascendency, landowners who had come to Ireland from Britain as part of the process of colonisation and land redistribution, saw the potential of the physical aspects of the Irish landscape but they saw it as dehumanised, bare, with rocks and trees. They were also very concerned to demonstrate their place and power in this landscape, as Foster (1988:192) put it, ‘only recently won and insecurely held’.
