ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I extend the discussion of identity to examine the contrasting roles played by the contested imagery of cultural landscape in defining or impeding social cohesion in Ireland. As explained in Chapter 1, manipulated depictions of landscape offer an ordered, simplified vision of the world and act as a system of signification supporting the authority of an ideology and emphasising its holistic character. These constructs are central to discourses of inclusion and exclusion and to definitions of the Other and Otherness. The ubiquitous relationship between politico-cultural institutions and territoriality suggests that agreed representations of place are fundamental to establishing the legitimacy of contemporary authority which is derived, not from the support of a numerical majority alone, but through renditions of plurality that transcend class, gender and ethnic divisions.
