article
Colonialism and community structure in western Ireland
Ethnohistory • 27 (2) • Published In 1980 • Pages: 169-181
By: Taylor, Lawrence J..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
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.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Fishing
- Settlement patterns
- Real property
- Production and supply
- Labor supply and employment
- Household
- Extended families
- Lineages
- Community structure
- 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
- 1973, 1976
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1500-1973
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Teelin, County Donegal, Ulster, Ireland
- NotesAdditional notes
- Lawrence J. Taylor
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 57043343
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Ireland--Rural conditions