Transhumance and the Making of Ireland's Uplands, 1550-1900

Eugene Costello

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English

The Boydell Press
15 June 2020

Social & cultural history; Landscape archaeology; Rural communities

Series: Garden and Landscape History

First full survey of how transhumance operated in Ireland from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth. WINNER: American Conference for Irish Studies Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book 2021 Special Commendation, Publication Prize in Irish History, NUI Awards 2021 The rearing of cattle is today a fairly sedentary practice in Ireland, Britain and most of north-west Europe. But in the not-so-distant past it was common for many rural households to take their livestock to hill and mountain pastures for the summer. Moreover, ethnographic accounts suggest that a significant number of people would stay in seasonal upland settlements to milk the cows and produce butter and cheese. However, these movements all but died out in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, meaning that today transhumance is mainly associated with Alpine and Mediterranean landscapes.

This book is the first major interdisciplinary approach to the diversity and decline of transhumance in a northern European context. Focusing on Ireland from c.1550 to 1900, it shows that uplands were valuable resources which allowed tenant households to maintain larger herds of livestock and adapt to global economic trends. And it places the practice in a social context, demonstrating that transhumance required highly organized systems of common grazing, and that the care of dairy cows amounted to a rite of passage for young women in many rural communities.

By: Eugene Costello
Imprint: The Boydell Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Volume: v. 7
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 170mm, Spine: 21mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9781783275311
ISBN 10: 1783275316
Series: Garden and Landscape History
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 15 June 2020
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction Seasonal movement and settlement in a world of pastoralism Imagining movement: past and present views of transhumance in Ireland Seasonal sites in context: summer pastures of the Carna peninsula Connected places: home and booley in Gleann Cholm Cille over time Altitude and adaptation: evolving seasonal settlement in the Galtee Mountains Herders and historical forces, 1600-1900 Conclusion

Dr EUGENE COSTELLO is Lecturer in Environmental History at the Radical Humanities Laboratory in University College Cork, Ireland.

Reviews for Transhumance and the Making of Ireland's Uplands, 1550-1900

Costello's wide-ranging research and incisive analysis on transhumance makes a valuable contribution to historical archaeology not just in Ireland, but in a wider European context...The great achievement of this book is that it brings to the fore a people and a way of life that has not been fully appreciated in Irish settlement studies hitherto, surely a commendable achievement. * AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW * Costello's splendid opus . . . is highly worthwhile for an interdisciplinary readership and at the same time is a groundbreaking work for future cross-disciplinary research on the diversity of transhumance in Northwestern Europe and beyond. * AGRICULTURAL HISTORY * An exemplar of how historical landscapes should be studied, and informs our wider understanding of how social and economic processes played out in different regions. * LANDSCAPE HISTORY *