Images of development and underdevelopment in Glencolumbekille, County Donegal, 1830-1970

Tucker, Vincent

essay

Images of development and underdevelopment in Glencolumbekille, County Donegal, 1830-1970

rural change in ireland • Belfast • Published In 1999 • Pages: 84-115

By: Tucker, Vincent.

Abstract
This article takes a dependency and world theory perspective on two periods in the history of a parish in County Donegal: the 1830s-1880s, around the time of the Great Famine; and the post-World War Two through 1960s Bretton Woods period. Although Glencolumbkille has been portrayed as "remote, inaccessible, marginal, disadvantaged, underdeveloped," it is argued that the county has long been integrated into the global economy, as a supplier of cod, ling and, later, herring to European markets. These links were cut by the colonial government and the county became an area to be "regulated, improved, ordered, developed, and modernized." The traditional mixed and communal ([n]rundale[/n]) farming system was broken up in an effort to rationalize land use and obtain higher rents. Open fields were enclosed and property boundaries redrawn, breaking up the nucleated ([n]clachan[/n]) settlements and creating a dispersed housing pattern in its stead. The practice of rent racking destabilized the livelihood of tenants on the eve of the Great Famine.

History

Economic planning and development

Administrative agencies

External relations

Political movements

Rural Irish

HRAF PubDate