Townlands Project
"Townlands" is a collaborative project which explores a very specific place, the nine townlands in the old civil parish of Rathcoole, Co Kilkenny. The project, which was led by visual artist Alan Counihan, is an action of the Kilkenny Heritage Plan and was funded by the Kilkenny Heritage Office, the Heritage Council and the Arts Office of Kilkenny County Council. The project recorded 450 fieldnames in the parish of Rathcoole.
The project is an artist-driven, heritage-based in-depth exploration of a particular landscape as an inhabited and working environment. Its focus is primarily on the "vernacular" history of the fields, their form and use, and the names and stories by which they are still specifically remembered.
GIS Application for Townlands
Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) the fieldnames have been mapped. Click the button below to view the study area as well as identify fields that were included in the survey:
A number of stories and memories of the area by local residents were also recorded as part of the project and are available to listen to at the local studies section of Kilkenny County Library. See http://kilkennylibrary.kilkenny.ie/eng/Our_Services/Local_Studies/
To find out more about the project see the Townlands website www.townlands.net. If you would like to find out how you could go about recording fieldnames in your local area, "A Fieldname Research Handbook" by Alan Counihan, will be of interest to you.
