%0 Journal Article
%T Culture and class among the "large" farmers of eastern Ireland
%A Wilson, Thomas M.
%J American ethnologist
%D 1988
%V Vol. 15
%N no. 4
%I American Ethnological Society
%C Washington, D.C.
%@ 0094-0496
%G English
%F er06-026
%O Thomas M. Wilson
%O LOC search performed 3 December 2012; scanned
%O Includes bibliographical references (p. 691-693)
%X In this article, the author focuses on Ireland's large commercial farmers, the "big men" of County Meath, a county with the greatest number of cattle, the most fertile land, the largest farms and the richest farmers in Ireland. Since the eighteenth century it has sold fattened beef to Dublin, Britain and, after 1973, the European Common Market. Catholic and middle class, Meath farmers were skilled agricultural workers and former tenants who purchased land when the gentry left the country after the First World War. The farmers soon came to dominate the local economy and politics. They own or rent the best land, control the cattle trade, serve as merchants and cattle agents, and run the farmers' cooperatives, organizations, and livestock marts. The largest landowners are the few remaining descendants of the Protestant Ascendancy class. The author identifies a third class of Catholic agricultural laborers and discusses the sociocultural world and the politics of each class.
%K Ireland
%K Rural conditions
%K Rural Irish
%K Eireanneach
%K Domesticated animals
%K Tillage
%K Real property
%K Inheritance
%K Classes
%U https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=er06-026
%P 678-693
%[ 2022-06-26