Irelands Green Revirginisation. Exploring German Tourism

Until about the mid 16th century, the entire Island was covered in vast forests, predominately oak, birch, hazel and elder tree, forests which have been almost completely removed to satisfy the needs of the British fleet for good quality woods, within a timespan of about 300 years. Forests were turned into timber the main material to build the ships that enabled Britain to expand and strengthen their empire, to colonise other countries, and to support the developing mercantile capitalist economy by transporting, sugar, spices, tobacco and slaves. The cutting of the forests also signalled the beginning of the industrial revolution, fired by the pieces of wood that could not be used for construction, and by the easy accessibility of cheap Irish workers, who deprived of their natural environment and its food resources now had to make a living elsewhere. After all, capitalism is based on the transportation of goods bought at a cheap price or even stolen from a place where they are plentiful and sold at the highest possible price in a new location where they are rare. The speed and the conditions of transport are everything in our current economic model, even today. In this context, it is striking and contradictory that the Irish product that sells best in the global market is the image of untouched nature. And German tourists are the biggest target of this campaign. My paper will explore the interdependency of such image creation and economic transactions. Furthermore I will argue that the need to sell the Irish landscape as virgin, can be seen in the framework of a traumatic complex: it is a landscape that tries to forget the violent acts that brought it about and presents itself as a simulacrum of wholeness.