Settlement and Traditional Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Burren

Project Description

The potential of the archaeology of late medieval and early modern Burren to contribute to an understanding of that period of the Irish past has not been realised. The aim of this project is to establish trends and patterns in the organisation of land and settlement by the people of the Burren. The holdings of minor elites within tradition-bound kindreds, rather than those of lords, are the focus of the project. The relationship of late medieval parish churches to those settlements and the modifications made to church buildings from the late fifteenth into the seventeenth century is also considered. The principal case study areas are the townlands of Cahermacnaghten and Lissylisheen in the southern Burren uplands.

The results of the project so far has revealed the highly dynamic and complex nature of land ownership and settlement norms in the Burren especially in respect of the class of people below the level of lords. The lands of minor tradition-bound kindreds were not contiguous but scattered throughout several Burren parishes and generally within the same tuáth or territory. A significant finding is that the modern townlands are not representative of the original Gaelic land denominations. This is clearly seen in the case of Cahermacnaghten (734 statute acres) townland. The original Cahermacnaghten, as recorded in a land-division deed of 1606, was a half-quarter or leith sheisre amounting to c. 150 Irish acres or c. 242 statute acres. This finding is important because it challenges received opinion about the immutability of the Irish townland. The patterns observed in the case study areas can be translated to other Gaelic landholdings in the Burren. The ascendancy of the O’Briens in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and their land-grabbing ventures throughout that period changed the landownership dynamic among the traditional families. In 1641, for example, two O’Briens held one-third of a quarter of the O’Davoren Cahermacnaghten lands and they had also acquired lands on the Lissylisheen holding of the family. The properties of minor elites were thereby dismantled and fragmented into ever-decreasing and hopelessly unprofitable holdings.

Figure 3: Church doorway, Burren, Co. Clare

Where settlement is concerned, what emerges is a picture of continuous occupation of major settlement nodes combined, as might be expected, with a tendency to alter and augment existing settlements at different points in time. Central to this continuity was the survival of the cathair or cashel as a late settlement form across the Burren. Some cashels, like Cahermacnaghten, express long periods of use in modifications to their wall fabric or in the addition of new dwellings to their garths, while others, although not showing any sign of late medieval occupation, became the focus of later settlement endeavour. The view of a relict landscape, inhabited only by tower house society, becomes redundant in view of these findings. A vibrant cathair tradition that continued and modernised under minor elites, and with it the emergence of different types of single-storey dwellings and other buildings, became a signature for an adaptive and dynamic early modern society in north Clare.

Contact Details

Dr Elizabeth FitzPatrick ( Profile)

Department of Archaeology,

School of Geography and Archaeology, NUI, Galway

Contact: elizabeth.fitzpatricknuigalway.ie

Funding Bodies

INSTAR 2008

Royal Irish Academy 2005–6

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