Villages on the Edge of the Edge: Reflections on the Changing Economics of Irish Coastal Communities

Author(s): Ian Kuijt

Year: 2016

Summary

Island village communities are both physically detached from, and connected with, mainland urban and foreign economic communities.   In the context of 19th to 20th century Irish fishing communities, landlords owned entire islands and ran them as economic enterprises.  On the Connemara islands of Inishark, Inishbofin, and Inishturk, tenants often lived in close physical proximity to each other, in villages of a hundred or more people, paying rent to the landlord in exchange for use of stone houses, farming fields and fishing rights.  While providing families with a subsistence foundation of plentiful fish and good soil for potatoes and other crops, the economics of island life were tethered to and connected with Transatlantic economies, and the shifting markets related to kelp, fish, and Basking shark.  These villages, connected to the engine of mainland or foreign economies yet, existing in remote costal areas, were on the edge of the edge.

Cite this Record

Villages on the Edge of the Edge: Reflections on the Changing Economics of Irish Coastal Communities. Ian Kuijt. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington, D.C. 2016 ( tDAR id: 434766)

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Keywords

Temporal Keywords
19th Century

Spatial Coverage

min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 718