article
Culture and class among the "large" farmers of eastern Ireland
American ethnologist • 15 (4) • Published In 1988 • Pages: 678-693
By: Wilson, Thomas M..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
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.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Domesticated animals
- Tillage
- Real property
- Inheritance
- Classes
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Rural Irish
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2016
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Europe
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- British Isles
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard; 2014
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1976-1987
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1973-1986
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- County Meath, Leinster, Ireland
- NotesAdditional notes
- Thomas M. Wilson
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 691-693)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 74644326
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Ireland--Rural conditions