%0 Journal Article
%T Colonialism and community structure in western Ireland
%A Taylor, Lawrence J.
%J Ethnohistory
%D 1980
%V Vol. 27
%N no. 2
%I Duke University Press
%C Durham, Nc
%@ 0014-1801
%G English
%F er06-032
%O Lawrence J. Taylor
%O LOC search performed 3 December 2012; scanned
%O Includes bibliographical references
%X In this article, the author attempts to explain the structure and development of two "ideal" types of rural Irish community not just in terms of ecological adaptation, but in terms of landownership and dominant social relations. Contemporary patterns of settlement and social relations are viewed as a recent stage in an "ongoing historical dialectic" between peasants, local circumstances and ruling elites. For example, the idealized dispersed stem-family farmsteads described by others for County Clare were a consequence of families trying to keep property intact, passing to a single heir in reaction to an historical trend of dividing tenancies. The communal structure of coastal communities in County Donegal was maintained in spite of land division because of agnatically organized commercial fishing. The author is adamant in noting that any superficially apparent similarity with past settlement patterns and communal forms such as the [n]clachan[/n] is not attributable to the perseverance of tradition.
%K Ireland
%K Rural conditions
%K Rural Irish
%K Eireanneach
%K Fishing
%K Settlement patterns
%K Real property
%K Production and supply
%K Labor supply and employment
%K Household
%K Extended families
%K Lineages
%K Community structure
%U https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=er06-032
%P 169-181
%[ 2022-07-03