Booleying in Achill, Achill Beg and Corraun

Theresa McDonald

Figure 1: Booley Site at Bunowna, Co. Mayo (photo: T McDonald)

Transhumance was/is a practice found in many parts of Europe involving the removal of livestock, usually cattle, from a permanent settlement to summer grazing on upland mountain pastures. It was once an integral part of an Irish pastoral economic system but owing to a lack of research is still poorly understood. It dates back at least to the Early Medieval Period and is mentioned in the Irish Law Tracts of the 6 ^th-14 ^th Century AD, where the rights to summer grazing on mountain commonage was allocated in strict proportion to the amount of land held at the permanent settlement. There is also regular distinction between the home farm ( senlis or senbaile) and the summer milking place ( airge).

This research will involve a multidisciplinary investigation of six extant booley settlements in Achill Parish, Co. Mayo involving EDM/GPS survey, Site Catchment analysis, photogrammetry and GIS.  Some extant British transhumant sites will be used for comparative analysis with the Achill sites.  Research will also involve the contextualising of the origin, flourit and demise of booleying in Achill in a diachronic framework. Transhumance was/is distance dependent so investigation of the spatial relationship between permanent and booley sites will be investigated via GIS, as will the cartographic linkage of townlands, associated ’droveways’ and the changing function of sites from permanent to seasonal and back again. The use of space within and between structures will be addressed via agency theory to consider the ways in which past people structured their villages and homes. Environmental sampling, palynology and processing of data will assess the environmental background to booleying and local resource procurement strategies.

The concept of marginality, the relationship of Rundale to booleying, the single farm and the so-called clachan settlements will be examined and critiqued. Exploration of the tensions between contemporary documents and the material record to understand the realities of the practice of booleying as it related to tenancy, labour, trade, religious beliefs, household and social relationships will be investigated. Examination of why the Old Irish term of ’airge/airidh’ used to define transhumance was supplanted by ’ boolies’; a term coined by Spencer in 1596 to define primitive upland huts was applied to the actual practice of booleying. Conversely, why was  ’ airge’, (erg) introduced to Northern England by emigrant Dublin Norsemen in the tenth century A.D, used to denote the practice of transhumance and not, ’ saetr, the Norse term for the practice? Assess how transhumance as a functioning social system differed from the caoraigheacht  (Creaght) or nomadic pastoralism. The absence of booley placenames in Achill Parish where the practice continued into the 20 ^th century and their proliferation in areas of Ireland with no evidence of transhumance is puzzling and requires explanation.

Theresa McDonald obtained her primary degree at the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, followed by a Masters Degree at University College Galway.

E-mail theresa47mcdonaldyahoo.co.uk

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