Anna explores Where Land Meets Sea

John Rainsford talks to Dr Anna Ryan whose new book, Where Land Meets Sea, draws from her childhood holidays in Clare

THERE is something deeply mystical about our collective need as humans to return to the sea. Perhaps it is, as evolutionary biologists believe, a tacit acknowledgement of the supremacy of evolution over millions of years.
One person who knows more about its allure than most is Dr Anna Ryan, lecturer at the School of Architecture, University of Limerick (SAUL).
Childhood holidays spent at the Clare coast have now inspired her to write a book based upon the confluence of land and sea.
“My dad always went on his childhood summer holidays to Kilkee,” explains Dr Ryan. “When he had a family himself, he brought us on holidays to Clare for two weeks every July throughout much of the 1980s. We stayed in the Mungovan’s Quilty Holiday Cottages. We loved it there – playing with the Mungovan family, picking periwinkles, poking around in the rock pools, and exploring the ruins around Seafield Pier. We even returned to Quilty for a family holiday at the turn of the millennium.
“I was then in my final year of studying architecture at University College Dublin (UCD) and this return visit prompted me to pick nearby Lahinch as the site for my final-year thesis design project. I had, by chance, started talking to a man on the promenade at Lahinch, a long-standing member of the local sea rescue crew and he told me about the erosion of the local sand dunes and the sinking of the shingle over time. I decided to research the issue, spoke to many coastal experts and designed a proposal for pools to break the force of the waves as they arrive at the promenade,” she explains.
Her Lahinch project sparked a real interest in her into how humans use the coastline and how this use puts significant pressures on the environment. After two years working with Grafton Architects in Dublin, she wanted to explore this idea further, so she moved to University College Cork (UCC), where she undertook a PhD in their geography department. The resulting book, which has been published by Ashgate, a large academic publisher based in England, clearly had Quilty and Lahinch as early starting points.
Dr Ryan says, “The book is all about highlighting the importance of the relationship forged between people and their surroundings, in particular Where Land Meets Sea. For my research, I took two coastal sites, the South Wall in Dublin City and the Maharees Peninsula in County Kerry. I engaged 62 participants in photography and drawing and asked them to use disposable cameras to explore what was important in their chosen locality. Some were also asked to draw how they felt in those places.
“The resulting participants’ photographs and drawings represent their own unique spatial experience of their environs. They also reveal the potential that exists in becoming more actively aware of our surroundings. My argument is that in exploring and articulating these aspects, we become more aware of our physical localities. This awareness offers the potential to help society as a whole, ultimately resulting in different decisions about those surroundings, for example, in creating alternative politics for our coastal areas,” she says.
Strangely, for one so familiar with Clare, she is originally from Dalkey, Dublin and attended Loreto Abbey there for her primary and secondary education. Since 2007, she has resided in Limerick City, where she works as a full-time lecturer.
Her father hails from Sallybank, East Clare and her mother is from Abbeyfeale, Limerick. Both moved to Dublin when they were just 18-years-old and have lived there ever since. However, their daughter has maintained a close relationship with the Clare coast, spawned by those early family holidays.
Dr Ryan’s grandfather, John; great-grandfather, Vincent and great-great-grandfather, Jeremiah were the national school masters at Sallybank, which was built in 1843. Her father grew up in the house beside the school and since taking retirement from the ESB, has been writing his memoirs of those early childhood experiences.
The old school was closed in the late 1960s but her father, an only child, still loves to visit the neighbours and friends he grew up with back then. Indeed, Dr Ryan’s workplace at UL is only seven miles from Sallybank.
She states, “When I moved to Limerick five years ago, I enjoyed being able to go windsurfing and surfing in West Clare, particularly at Lahinch and Liscannor but also sometimes at Fanore, north of Doonbeg, Seafield and Spanish Point.
“My dad brought my sister and I to tin-whistle classes as part of the Willie Clancy Festival on one of our childhood summer holidays. Three years ago, I returned to the same festival with my cello, a little bit of an unusual instrument to have in the traditional music scene, I must admit. However, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to join Martin Hayes’ fiddle class there for the week. It was amazing to experience his beautiful playing and story-telling first hand and to learn traditional tunes directly from him.”
For over five years now, Dr Ryan has taught architecture to all levels of students at SAUL, having previously taught part-time for two years at UCD’s School of Architecture.
“I love teaching,” she says. “It is a role which I feel very much suits me because I thoroughly enjoy learning about new things. Therefore, encouraging and stimulating others on their own journeys of discovery is very fulfilling. In my opinion, to be a good teacher you need to inspire and stimulate each student to want to learn.
“Teaching is not simply about passing on knowledge – it is about generating the opportunities for students to discover that knowledge for themselves and to take ownership over the direction of their learning. It is great seeing how students progress, develop and grow in confidence and maturity over their five years studying architecture.”
SAUL is a relatively small school in comparison with others at UL, having a total of 120 students but this has given Dr Ryan the opportunity to build even closer teaching relationships. It also provides an opportunity for her to try to figure out what best suits each individual student , what way they best learn, what they respond to and how best to encourage each of them.
The role is very challenging on a day-to-day basis and is never static or fixed. With individual responses to a given project being unique, SAUL seeks to be open, flexible and adaptable to each student’s stage of work.
“It is a pleasure to teach and guide the students of architecture at UL,” comments Dr Ryan. “They are highly motivated and work diligently. They generate a tremendous atmosphere of focus and energy in the design studio. The space of the design studio at SAUL is very important.
“All years of students work together in the same large space but they each have their own workspaces where they draw, make models and discuss their work with us, as staff, with each other in their own years and among other years. SAUL offers UL a unique type of learning environment.”
The architecture degree at SAUL was in operation for just one year when Dr Ryan began teaching there. In establishing a new school of architecture, the head of the school, Professor Merritt Bucholz, deliberately encouraged openness, freshness and experimentation as the prevailing ethos both among staff and students. Indeed, she notes how satisfying it is for her today to see those same students, whom she taught back in 2007, now pursuing their own professional journeys beyond UL.
“The profession of architecture is not well understood in Ireland. Similarly, the process of architectural education is not well known. A typical perception of architecture and the role of the architect is one of making buildings, in other words of providing functional accommodation for people’s activities. Architecture strives to be far more than this, however. Ultimately, it is a way of thinking about the world around us,” she adds.
Tim Robinson, the renowned mapmaker and writer, who lives in Roundstone, Connemara, has praised Dr Anna Ryan’s book, which he described as “beachcombing in the tidal zone where geography meets philosophy”.
Indeed, the former leader of the Irish Green Party, John Gormley, launched the tome to a packed East Room, in Plassey House, UL, on May 14. Dr Ryan was delighted that so many friends, family, colleagues and students came to celebrate with her. Indeed, the occasion made the many years of effort that had gone into writing it worthwhile.
For more information about Dr Anna Ryan’s book, Where Land Meets Sea: Coastal Explorations of Landscape, Representation and Spatial Experience, visit www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409429357.