ABSTRACT
One way in which geographers have sought to elucidate and illuminate place identity and place experience has been through creative art-both literature and painting. Writers and artists are both witnesses to our world but also products of it, possessing qualities of insight which can be mustered in helping to understand the diversity of place and the contested meanings that can be attributed to it. Because they can express sublime emotions like love, hate or fear and are similarly capable of articulating manifestations of place, society rewards and honours its artists, who are seen as interpreters of national culture. The role of the artist as witness and interpreter of place,
landscape and identity, can be broadened beyond mere reflection or revelation. To a very significant extent our past and present views of Ireland and Irishness have been shaped by readings of literature and art (Dunne 1987).
