DRAWING WITH ALTITUDE II

On the west coast of the Inishowen Peninsula, just east of Fort Dunree, lies a small hill that played a huge role in changing how relief was portrayed on Ordnance Survey maps. In 1839, the land around Mullagharry hill was chosen for Ordnance Survey hill-sketchers’ earliest experiments in contouring. 

 The two-day Symposium will include introductory talk on exhibition (plus displays of related materials in the Foyer and Mezzanine Gallery). On Saturday 27th there will be a programme of talks by artists, academics, and historians followed by a panel discussion. Talks will encompass OS activities in Ireland (that began 200 years ago this year), contouring on the Inishowen Peninsula, as well as aspects of the history and heritage of the surrounding area. A pub quiz and buffet will be offered from 7pm at The Laurentic Bar.

On Sunday morning there will be two guided walks, one up and around Mullagharry, the hill at the heart of the story.

A view from the summit: the history of the geography

John McCarron is an artist and sculptor who studied at North West Regional College and Ulster University. He has made public sculptures for Donegal County Council, Gorta Mor Glasgow, Foris Na Gaeilge, and Trail Gazers EU. He is also PRO for the West Inishowen History and Heritage Society, an amateur historian having written many articles for the local press.

Surveying the Surveyors: Archaeologies of Cartography

Professor Keith Lilley is an historical geographer at Queen’s University Belfast in the Department of Geography. His teaching and research focuses on maps and landscapes, and straddles history, geography and archaeology. He has led funded research projects for more than three decades, exploring historic landscapes of towns and cities, as well as the evolution of maps and map-making. He is co-director of the IRC-AHRC-funded bilaterial digital humanities ‘OS200’ project and is currently writing a book called ‘In the Field: A Cartographic Journey’, for Reaktion.

Chasing a Line: Inishowen’s Place in the Story of Contour Lines on Maps

Dr Karen Rann works as a visual artist/researcher. Since taking up a British Council scholarship to the Fine Art Academy in Budapest (1992 to ’94) her focus has been space and place. During a residency with the National Trust for Scotland in 2013, research expanded to encompass walking and mapping processes. With funding from Arts Council England in 2016, and Creative Scotland in 2018, she was able to pursue self-initiated projects that focused on the sites, and makers, of historical contour maps. In 2021, she was awarded a J. B. Harley Research Fellowship: a prestigious research award in the history of cartography. Her (AHRC funded) PhD from Queen’s University Belfast (December 2022) was titled: Horizontal hills: a creative historical geography of the emergence of contour lines in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland.

Panel Discussion

Dr Sean Beattie is a research historian, editor of Donegal Annual, Macklin Festival and Colgan Heritage Weekend committee member, chairman of Ulster Local History Trust, author of a number of books on Donegal history, Ph.D. specialising in Congested Districts Board.

Dr Mhairi Sutherland’s visual arts research and practice explore issues of cultural identity, ecology and the archive, through photography and place. Her PhD was awarded from TU Dublin (2012) and an MFA with Distinction, University of Ulster, Belfast. (1996).

John Bradley holds a collection of surveying artefacts from 19th-20th century. Equipment includes a trigonometrical beacon, theodolite, heliotrope, and a circumferenter that was used to survey the area around Kilmacrenan.

John Hegarty is a historian and chair of the West Inishowen History and Heritage Society. He was born in Dunree Fort and qualified as an archeaologiest and has also studied geology. He is a former radio operator for Malin Head Coastguard and was a merchant seaman.

Sharon Porter‘s love for hiking began on the Urris Hills with her father. She joined the Magee Hill Walking Club in 1989, developing a passion for mapping. A walk leader, Low Land Leader, and Mountain Leader Candidate, she also founded Solas Ireland Walks and Hikes to share her love for Donegal’s hills.

John Bradley’s Collection

Throughout the two day symposium a collection of mapping instruments will be on display. John will be on hand to share his wealth of knowlege and will participate in the panel discussion.

BASE is the title of a unique book and short film created as part of a self-initiated Artist Residency within the Mapping Monuments’ project, supported by Binevenagh; Coastal Lowlands Landscape Partnership and Queen’s University Belfast. Continuing my artistic research of the militarised landscapes of the north coast and Donegal, photography and drawing are the touchstones of all the research, connecting the visible and the hidden, revealing signifiers in the contemporary landscape and the archive. From the names of the nineteenth century Surveyors’ displayed as residential street signs along a border road to Donegal, hiking to the summit of Sliabh Sneacht, the highest peak in Inishowen or to the lens-based re-imagining of Mount Sandy, an early OS marker long since disappeared into the north Atlantic, BASE traces the impress of this imperial world across the landscape.

BASE by Mhairi Sutherland will be on display during the Symposium weekend.

To coincide with Drawing with Altitude II, artists were invited to interpret this theme in their unique styles, through traditional mediums like painting and photography or modern forms such as digital art. The focus is on representing the rugged beauty, cultural significance, and natural charm of these landscapes. This open-call exhibition aims to showcase diverse perspectives and interpretations, providing a platform for artists to share their vision of Donegal’s hills. With over eighty artworks this is an impressive collection of contemporary artworks from the region.

Ready to scale new heights and conquer peaks of trivia? Join us for an exhilarating Quiz Night, where every question is a step towards the summit! On 27th July at 7pm, gather at The Laurentic Bar (The Ship) to test your wits on everything from Earagail to the Alps and enjoy a night filled with laughs, learning, and maybe even a Yeti sighting or two!
With a mountain of questions, rockin’ prizes, and summit snacks to fuel your brain, it’s sure to be an unforgettable evening. Bring your friends, form a team, and let’s see who will be the king or queen of the hills! Join us on this epic adventure. Be there or be a flatlander!

What do they call this place?

walk with John Hegarty and Mhairi Sutherland.

10am – 11.30am

Place names and townlands, local knowledge and language were key signifiers of the original 1820’s Ordnance Survey of Ireland. The ancient landscape of Donegal was already deeply embodied and named by the people who lived here, through the oral customs of Gaelige and later mingled with terms of the mainly Scots settlers of the Plantation of Ulster. The ‘Name Books’ of the OS detailed townlands and place names in an attempt to collate the richness and complexity of this indigenous knowledge, principally for purposes of taxation but also as part of the ethnographic fever for classification sweeping Europe during the 19th Century. It was applied particularly by colonial authority to places of colonisation. The process of documenting Irish place names and pronunciations as written record was simultaneously a process of erasure, as the anglicised form became the definitive article.

John Hegarty and Mhairi Sutherland will lead a walk to the Top Fort area of Dunree, combining their respective experience in local knowledge, history, drawing and conversation. This outdoors event invites people to record and share from their own perspective, using family names, nicknames and place names. At the end of the walk we will gather indoors for a cuppa and a blether over our collective ‘Name Book’ of the Parish and elsewhere. All materials supplied, dress for variable weather!

image of Mhairi Sutherland by Sara Leahy

A small hill with a huge role in map-making history

A walk with Karen Rann and Sharon Porter

12-2pm

Just east of Dunree is a small hill called Mullagharry. This wee hill played a pivotal role in the history of map-making. It was here, in 1839, that the Ordnance Survey made their first ever (anywhere in the world) trial of contouring. Until then, OS hill-sketchers had drawn the hills for maps by eye. From Mullagharry’s 120m summit, Lough Swilly and many of Inshowen’s and Fanad’s hills are visible, even as far as Muckish, earning it the name ‘hill summit of the look out’ (Mullach an Airí).

Meeting at Green Hill, with a good view of Mullagharry, we will survey the rolling hills of Desertegny through mapmaker’s eyes. The walk will explore and place the hill within its local heritage and natural environment including features from neolithic times, such as the megalithic tomb at Mullagharry’s summit.

Karen Rann and Sharon Porter will lead the walk. Karen has been fascinated by Mullagharry since discovering its pivotal role in mapping. She first walked it in 2021 during field research for her PhD. On the walk she will share some of her findings on the ways in which hills have been flattened onto paper maps though the ages. Sharon is a local walking guide with a love of nature and the cultural heritage of the area. Over the years, she has climbed all of the hills and mountains visible from Mullagharry. Sharon will share some local stories and knowledge of the local flora and landscape en route.

The walk will be on small country roads, track and bogland which can be wet and slippery in places. There will also be some up hill sections. Please wear sturdy walking shoes/boots, rain gear and bring some water.