Collective Labor, Communal Lives: Social Dynamics of 19th-Century Rural Life in Northwest Co. Mayo, Ireland

Summary

Nineteenth-century tenant families on the Bingham Estate and throughout rural Ireland resided in cottage clusters known as clachans, nucleated groups of farmhouses, where land-holding was communal and often had considerable ties of kinship. These settlements were intimately associated with rundale farming, a system of cooperative or collective agriculture. This system was a sophisticated response to specific ecological conditions. Lands within infields, outfields, and commonage were allocated so that each household received a proportionate share of productive and non-productive land. Thus, each community was highly adapted to its unique environmental niche. These settlements were also highly complex social organisms. Children kept cattle away from the gardens, cut and planted potatoes, and gleaned fields where grains were harvested. Women provided for the children, carded and spun wool, and tended to the household. Men were responsible for the management of farm lands. Thus, activity within each clachan and rundale was shaped by gender and age. Although maligned as ‘backwards’ and ‘primitive,’ clachans were in fact well-orchestrated socio-economic systems that distributed the risk of agricultural production among its members. This paper explores the social dynamics of these fascinating gendered landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20451