North of the North
The Inishowen Peninsula occupies an interesting space within Ireland, both geographically and conceptually. While in a general sense, Northern Ireland covers the northern part of the island, there is a slice of County Donegal, in the Republic, which curves around its northwesternmost corner - jutting out to the north beyond Northern Ireland itself.
Connected to the rest of its county only by a thin sliver of land, Inishowen has a somewhat Alaskan feel to it. The terrain is rural and mountainous, with a jagged coastline dotted with active fishing ports. It feels isolated, far-flung, independent, and a bit detached from All the Rest of It in a way that goes beyond geography alone.
Most of all, Inishowen feels distinctly and exuberantly northernly.
Part of it could be the colour scheme - with cool shades of slate, blue, grey, lilac and green, dominating the landscape. Even the sand is a silvery sort of taupe, rather than a yellow-beige. The soil an ash-brown, rather than a chocolate. The sun platinum-white rather than golden.
There is a more or less constant breeze coming off the surrounding sea. Even on a hot, sunny day, the heat is tampered with an underlying chill. Your skin burns while at the core you feel shivers. An ever-present feverish feeling is a normal part of peninsular life.
The light is low, slanted, and often with a glowing sort of haze through it - created by the perpetual sea-mist. In this light, forms become flattened and sharpened to the point of uncanniness. The mountain backdrop looks like layered cardboard cutouts, abruptly outlined against the improbably cloudy sky.
Living on the banks of the Foyle, I am watching the ferry cross the lough back and forth throughout the day. In the low transformative light, it too becomes a cutout animation along with the mountains and the clouds, as if a child up in the sky is pulling it back and forth by a thread.
According to my compass, I am facing directly South, as I look across the water at Magilligan Strand, Bellarena Airfield, Binevenagh Mountain, and the market town of Limavady - all of this in County Derry, Northern Ireland.
I am North of the North, and I feel it. It is a sensation I like very much, even if I do not entirely understand it.
There is a romanticism to the concept of ‘north,’ to be sure. A mysticism. An unknowableness. Embodied by Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, that dramatic, sentimental imagery of mankind staring out to sea, frigid waves crashing all around, is the very iconography of the 1800s Romantic Era. Is it simply a part of my cultural heritage? Embedded in my psyche as the epitome of natural beauty and the source of creative inspiration?
For a couple of years in my 20s, I lived in coastal Maine, and was similarly inspired by its ‘northern’ feel. I felt compelled to venture further, and one day traveled to the tiny town of Eastport - the northernmost point along the East Coast USA. It was a fascinating place. And also an overwhelmingly bleak one. There was an emptiness to the landscape. A scarcity of vegetation. An unexpected lack of coastal drama. As well as a strange feeling of impermanence to the infrastructure. As I walked the roads, an undercurrent of panic crept in that I could not suppress. In a way, this too was North of the North - that is to say, north of how The North is perceived by the American cultural imagination. And perhaps on that occasion I had ventured beyond my psyche’s Romanticism-rooted comfort zone.
Thinking back to this experience, I can see that the Inishowen Peninsula indeed holds a special status for me. It teeters on the edge of the Romantic North and the True North, with just enough of the aesthetic element and the familiar maritime iconography to keep the panic at bay. The coves, the fishing ports, the colourful boats, even the cosmopolitan mannerisms of the locals, tamper the harshness of the environment with a sense of comfort. Whether it is real, or a mirage woven out of sea-mist to lure naive ones such as myself, is ultimately unknowable - just like the North itself.
