Richard Murphy: Autobiography and the Connemara landscape

Abstract

It could be argued that an important feature of Richard Murphy’s work, and of his identity as a poet is the relationship between the creative self and a particular place, where ‘place’ should be understood as referring not just to physical qualities of the natural environment, but in a broader sense to denote an environment in which everything is interrelated and connected, and in which there is no sharp division between the natural and the human. The landscape providing inspiration for Murphy’s poetic imagination is the landscapes and seascapes of Connemara in north-west Ireland. In 1959 he settled in this environment which was to be his base for the next 20 years and from this period and this location emanated the bulk of his poetic oeuvre. For Murphy committing to a life of writing poetry necessarily means being in the Connemara landscape. Returning to this environment in adulthood represents a quest for recovering childhood feelings, of belonging and love, as connected to particular places. Murphy’s Connemara poems could be read as an account of this process of re-placement, as a type of autobiographical text in which the artist creates a ‘double portrait’: in writing about the landscape he also writes about himself, creating a place-portrait which is, at the same time, a self-portrait.

What Role Does Rural Place Play in the Lives of Mid-Life Women in Sweden and Ireland?

“…A sense of well-being gained from living near blue or green space may be sufficient to off-set any negative rural factors such as poorer social amenities and may increase attachment to place. The concept of landscape may also be considered as referring in a broader sense to an environment of connectedness, with no sharp division between the natural and the human or between self and place [32].…”

“…Critical to definitions of rural and of the self are perceptions of the physical environment: literature argues that the establishment of the self is impossible without the context of place, and that landscape writing is autobiographical [32] (p. 3).…”