Ballyvaughan: huge and engulfing terrain surrounding such a tiny village. When I actually happen upon someone it seems very special. Fishing port. Limestone Burren. Millions of years ago, all under sea. Shale over it, but ice scraped it away so now its all limestone. Still eroding a paper's thickness a year. Cracked and fissured. Glaciers dropped "erratics" all over the place, punctuated the landscape. Weird bands of gray stone cliffs, gaunt and very sparingly inhabited except by alien plants, some sea urchins and purple jellyfish. One edge of the world to another edge of the world. Contrast. Idyllic cottages and summer-homes to poor Desmond Frances' abandoned lot. Paradox of fertility and barrenness.

this map was composed over a year after i'd lived there, in a quickly scrawled out attempt to describe the experience to a friend of mine. all of this was based purely on my memory of the place, so it was interesting to revisit this now, 3 years after i made the map and 4 years after living there, to see how my memory of the town was in the process of decaying even more.  i was surprised to see the various details i'd pointed out then that i'd since forgotton about, such as the meditation shed in back of paddy kearn's house (see red markers). if i were asked to make a map of ballyvaughan this year, i'd certainly have omitted precious details like that.