Those Nameless
There’s a sense of forgottenness. Time doesn’t stand still; it’s in reverse. The hands of the universal clock are turning backwards. Tock tick. Morning mist lies heavy over the bogland as the distant fiery sun slowly rises just beyond the blurred horizon. A drive across the borderlands of Counties Tyrone and Donegal offers up three historic places infused with nostalgia. Live, work, die. First, a cottage with a red tin roof, a red front door and green window surrounds next to an outbuilding with a green tin roof and red doors. Neither twee nor spoiled. Second, a string of monochromatic farm buildings excelling at form following function. Three road facing barns in descending size right to left, like a structural version of a Russian Matryoshka nesting doll. Third, crumbling stone remains and a scattering of tombstones inherently part of the landscape: nature completed, not violated. A mutual enrichment. The grassy graveyard is a metre or more higher than the trench like path to the open arch of the fragmented church, giving a feeling of being buried. Lived, worked, died.
