CONTENTS Page Foreword - Prof Mark Boyle - Head of NUI Maynooth Geography Department 3 Editors Notes - Greg White 4 Geography Society 2008 - Pamela Dore 5 Prof Mark Boyle and Dr Mary Gilmartin 6 ‘Towards togetherness’: The challenge of sustaining communities in contemporary Ireland. Andreas Boldt 9 Environmental history: The influence of water in human history. Christine Salmon 14 Alternative Geographies: Popular music and the Evocation of the Urban Landscape. Darren Hassett 16 Pictures, Pictures, Pictures. Elaine O Beirne Morrissey 18 Field Trip, Dublin –Laois. 16th, 17th February 2008 I.B. Crawley and L. Ackey 21 Exams – Mr. Angry Style Felix Schweikhardt 27 Our Earth Felix Schweikhardt 28 A geographical day Brendan Creedon 30 Kailash, Tibet, China and the world Martina Streicher 34 Over 20 years of ERASMUS - a big chance for geographers? Stefan Esch 38 My time in Ireland - Experiences of an Erasmus student Dr Adrian Kavanagh 39 The 2007 General Election The NUIM Geography Society 52 Colour photos from the Society Pádraig Hogan 56 The Eighth Wonder Of The World 1 Page Prof Dennis Pringle 59 Where did we come from? Dr Ronan Foley 64 Wells and Wellness Dr Shelagh Waddington 67 A geographer loose in Hawaii John Watters 71 Mobile Hibernia: ICTs and the transformation of Irish urban space over time Ali Robinson 81 ‘So you think your Celtic? Think again…! Caroline McCabe 87 What about a tangent??? Mark Farrelly 90 agriCULTURE Elaine Ryan 91 My Trip to Petauke in Zambia Rebecca Mc Govern 94 Irishness….according to me! Anne-Marie Corrigan 95 An understanding to Islamic Culture Ronán Howe 98 “The J1” Ciarán O’Callaghan 99 Sandyford: A Confused Development Rory Flood 102 The Cultural Geography of Fleet Street and the Political Economy Enda Ruddy 103 The importance of the Gaelic Athletic Association Brian Kelly 108 Graham Geraghty and the 2007 General Election Pamela Dore 110 Experiencing the World through Digital Mapping Acknowledgements 113 2 I would like to begin by thanking the Milieu team and in particular this year’s Editor Greg White for undertaking an excellent job in compiling this range of research materials. It is no easy task soliciting, reading and editing this volume of material and as ever the devil is in generating interesting discussion whilst getting the detail right. Greg has led the team well and the fruits of their labours are now to be enjoyed and savoured. Student led geography publications remain a valuable and fascinating source of insight into the kinds of geographical imaginations, which Universities are honing in the contemporary period. Professor Chris Philo was so intrigued by the journal produced by Geography students at the University of Glasgow - titled Drumlin - that he in fact dedicated a whole paper to this topic in the journal *Progress in Human Geography* Philo noted the ways in which the choice of research topics, research approaches, analytic styles, genres of writing, modes of expression, and so on contained in student journals always expose something fundamental about how students are picking up on ideas which are being generated and circulated by academic staff and wider geographical literature. Invariably the student’s perspective anticipates developments in human geography rather than follows such developments - and indeed given some of the trends in contemporary human geography it is often the grounded views of students which provide the necessary corrective to ideas which are rather too esoteric and self indulgent to be valuable! That NUI Maynooth students title their journal ‘Milieu’ and not ‘Drumlin’ provides in itself an interesting insight into the thinking of this geography community. Of course being so flat presumably the title Drumlin was never up for consideration in these parts! The genecology of the term Milieu in the Maynooth mind may never be fully known - although for sure colleagues will have some interesting pet theories. Milieu of course might be traced back to humanistic geographical concerns that came of age in the 1970s in Geography. Then, notions of sense of place, ecumene, place and placelessness, home, and human(e) environments were being mulled over by people like Anne Buttimer, Ted Relph, Yi Fu Tuan, and John Pickles. The concept of Milieu resonates with the collegiality, which marks the Kildare/Maynooth experience. It is a fitting title for a town whose atmosphere and sense of place cannot be easily articulated but which is welcoming, comfortable, and comforting in equal measure. I like to think that it was this backdrop that gave birth to the journal. Congratulations to all those who have written interesting pieces for this year’s journal and to those that have undertaken the task of sifting and sorting to chisel everything into shape. You now join the halls of fame and perhaps one day your work too will be dissected and theorised as a small but valuable and insightful comment on the historical geography of geographical knowledge. Professor Mark Boyle - Head of Department of geography 3 Editors Notes The job of editing this, the 31st, Edition of Milieu was made very easy. The reason for being so was because of the fantastic work and effort from the MILIEU Committee. The Milieu Committee include the following members of the NUI Maynooth Geography Society, Pamela Dore (President), Sandra Walsh (Vice-President), Brendan O’Reilly (Treasurer), Paul Geraghty (PRO), and Rebecca McGovern (Secretary). I would like to thank Caroline McCabe for her help with the committee and a special thank you goes to Felix Schweikhardt. Felix has encouraged the efforts of other Erasmus students to write articles for this Edition of Milieu. He himself has two articles contained within the bounds of this book. The Geography society in NUI Maynooth has stepped up again with this the 31st issue, last year’s edition was the first to go to a gum bound hard cover, this year has the benefit of the inclusion of colour pages. The Range of articles and topics has been as widespread as usual. We have a good selection from 1st, 2nd, & 3rd years plus postgraduates. We also have an article from a student from UCD. The inclusion of articles from lecturers again shows the strength of the Milieu as an Annual Geographical Journal. We would like to thank the new head of Geography at NUI Maynooth, Professor Mark Boyle, for his Foreword to this issue. The front cover of this issue and the NUIM Geography website has been created by a non-Geography student, James Doyle. We would like to thank and recognize all of your efforts that you have made to make things work behind the scenes. Thanks James. I hope many students will enjoyably read this issue. I have enjoyed being a part of the Geography Society and especially of taking an active part in the Milieu committee. I hope the next Geography Society members and the next Milieu Committee will enjoy putting Milieu together as much as I have. Greg White (Editor) 4 NUIM Geography Society: 2007-2008 Welcome to the 31st edition of Milieu, the annual journal of the NUIM Geography Society. Last year the society had the fantastic success of winning Most Improved Society 2007 at the Clubs and Society’s Awards, and this year has seen an increase in membership to over 130 as the society continues to grow and build on last year’s success. So what did we get up to this year? Well we started off early with the AGM making plans for the year, and we were away. A new bebo site was launched and the website was overhauled. The first event was a careers talk in UCD to hear what Geographers actually do once we leave the leafy Rhetoric House with our degree in hand. Back in Maynooth (after an interesting bus journey home) we continued talking of future prospects. Over the midterm a GPS treasure hunt on South Campus was mapped by some committee members. You know what you should never say when crossing the rocks in the garden’s pond on the south campus? “I’m always afraid I’m going to fall in” because inevitably you will, not naming any names of course. Several brave souls turned up on a very rainy and windy day and raced around South campus through some typical Irish weather and eventually found us with the aid of their trusty GPS. Our next main event was the Christmas Party in the Arts Block. The Doyle and Kelly families went head to head in Geography Family Fortunes, and the guest host led a very tight game with some interesting families! In the end the Doyle family emerged victorious, even if one of their questions “Name 4 geography lecturers from the UK” went to the only non-geography student contestant! The first semester drew to a close, Christmas came and went too fast (as usual) and then it was exams time. Then we were back with a bang helping organising a 70’s Charity night raising money for the Maire Keating foundation in collaboration with NUIM Snooker Club, NUIM Paintball Club and NUIM Gospel Choir on the 20th of February. It was a night filled with fantastic performances by the Gospel Choir and Elvis and Tina Turner impersonators with lots of money raised for a good cause. Of course getting Milieu together was the main focus of this second semester and we have a great mix of articles from first years to lecturers. Thanks to all those who were part of the production of Milieu, either by submitting an article or being on the committee and a special thanks to the Geography Department. But the year is not over yet, as we wait to go to print there are guest lecturers, social nights, another GPS treasure hunt, Clubs and Society’s Awards and the Green Globe Awards to launch Milieu still to come.