Floodscape

On my way back to Dublin from Galway I took a detour to Gort, to see what a seriously flooded part of the country might look like. I felt like an interloper (which of course I was), a disaster tourist. But I wanted to witness first hand what had devastated so much of the low-lying countryside, to see for myself the images I had only come across secondhand, usually on the TV news. I thought of Martin Parr's 'Bad Weather' series. It is a sour fact of life; fortunately or unfortunately, disaster areas can offer good photographs.

As I headed south from the Oranmore roundabout (it felt strange to skip the Dublin exit), I began to see the evidence, mainly on my right, which was nearer the coast. Widening pools in fields became small lakes, with drystone walls or fences dipping through them. One especially long fence I stopped to photograph provided a perch for gulls. I wondered if this was unusual. The sea was out of sight, but presumably not very far. Finally, near Gort, the road was cordoned off beyond a petrol station: a flooded patch broad as a medium river, with hedges, trees and traffic cones (the last giving a maritime touch, like bouys at sea). I stopped and went in to get something for lunch, and talked a little to the woman making me a sandwich (stuffing it with a prodigious amount of wafer-sliced ham). She told me that the road there had been flooded for ages (at least a month I think).

The town of Gort was bustling and busy. A large hardware/decorating shop I stopped to photograph had ubiquitous sandbags on the pavement and signs in the windows proclaiming a 'Flood Sale'. The town was on a steep hill, which was perhaps why there were no actual flooded areas till one explored the fields nearby, following the narrow backroads (some of them blocked and diverted), downhill till the road melted under a shimmering mirror, the edges of a brand-new lakelands.

I have a pretty lousy sense of direction, so, wary of getting lost, I decided not to drive too far from the town. When I noticed the road begin to level alongside a large flooded area that could have, almost, seemed like a bona fide lake if I had not attended to the news for the past couple of months, I pulled in to let traffic past. I got out and walked towards a half-submerged gate, where I met a stout farmer wheeling a mountain bike, with a couple of large plastic paint-tubs swinging from the handlebars (presumably buckets of feed). He was friendly, almost cheerful: 'Here to photograph the flood?' I admitted that I was, somewhat apologetically. But he wasn't disapproving. He hadn't been hit too bad; a good deal of his land was still above the flood. He told me where I could find the flooded church someone had told me of: Kiltartan. He went into his field and I walked on a bit. On my way back to the car I saw him on the upward slope and we waved to each other. He was putting out feed (for cows I think), a single black goat standing near him, looking down at me. Before leaving that area I took what may be my best photograph of the flood (above), something so simple and innocuous I almost missed it: behind a plastic barrier, a stretch of road running straight into the water.

On my way back to Oranmore I saw another 'road closed' sign on the left and took it on a whim. Here I found the flooded church, plus a clear rainbow arching out of flooded fields. The church drew me in, but was impossible to find a good angle on; something better photographed from a boat. There's a grotesque idea: boat cruises for flood-tourists.

I made good time back to Dublin. The only other dramatically flooded area I saw was near Ballinasloe, but the light was largely gone by then.

Here's some more shots, including the church I mentioned:

Rainbowed Field
Horses In Flooded Fields
Flooded Church, Kiltartan
Sunlit Flood
Flooded Fence
Reeds In Flooded Field
Cones In Flooded Road