Agricultural History Review, Volume 69 Part 2 (2021), p. 298

Transhumance has been dismissed in the past as a marginal activity which has left little trace in the landscape, a view that has somewhat constrained this area of settlement studies. Previous work has generally been undertaken from a folklife or geographical perspective, and while Costello’s fine book builds on this earlier work, he clearly articulates an archaeological approach, which adroitly combines field survey with the use of historical documents, cartographic sources and oral tradition.

Chapter 1 briefly looks at the issues and opportunities in the study of historical transhumance in north-west Europe before moving on to Britain. The author reviews the evidence as it survives in England and Wales, though reserves most of his attention on the shieling systems in different parts of Scotland, particularly in the highlands and islands, which is reflective of the surviving evidence and extent of current scholarship there. While drawing upon British evidence, the book in turn provides a useful parallel for the evolution and decline of transhumant practices in medieval and post-medieval Britain.

Chapter 2 delves into the perceptions versus actual practices of transhumance in medieval and early modern Ireland. English commentators in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries played up the practice of transhumance among the Gaelic Irish, making unfavourable comparisons with the roving nomadic habits of Scythian horsemen on the Eurasian steppes. Such biased and uninformed viewpoints ignored tillage farming among Irish farmers, and that the need to spare the best land for crops and preserve winter grass ironically necessitated farmers to move livestock away in the summer in the first place. Costello makes the important point that transhumant communities in post-medieval Ireland were agro-pastoralists, with the balance between crops and livestock varying greatly, depending on the environmental, economic and political contexts. His research illustrates that transhumance was a stable, well-organized form of cattle farming, which took place over distances that rarely exceeded 12km and was carried out with reference to fixed units of land.

The central chapters in the book focus on three study areas in Ireland: the Carna Peninsula in Connemara, County Galway, the parish of Gleann Cholm Cille in south-west County Donegal, and the Galtee Mountains in Counties Limerick and Tipperary. Focus on these case studies from different parts of the country has allowed for a fine-grained study of differences in topography, soil quality and socio-economic trends in each of the regions. The author has marshalled an impressive array of archaeological and ethnographic evidence that throws light upon the practice of transhumance in Ireland between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The three regional perspectives together make for a substantive study of the book’s central issues – the physical and cultural manifestation of transhumance in the landscape, the adaptability of non-elite tenant communities over time, and the decline of seasonal movement and settlement. By exploring the archaeological evidence through the various chapters, Costello has helped to create a template which can assist in the exploration of transhumant landscapes elsewhere in Ireland.

The style of booley dwellings ranges from sod- and rubble-walled huts of various shapes to larger rectangular ‘houses’ with coursed walls. Differences in shape (with rectangular, circular and irregular examples evident) suggest that chronological factors may explain the different forms of booley dwellings. Bearing that in mind, Costello calls for more archaeological excavations of booley sites, accompanied by palaeoenvironmental analysis in the surrounding areas. He advocates that further field survey could be undertaken to gain a fuller picture of the distribution of possible booley sites at a regional and national scale. Given that much of the discussion of seasonal settlement has relied on comparisons with permanent settlement, the author believes that it would be beneficial to initiate a programme of excavation also at the permanent dwellings of transhumant families and communities. A better understanding of nucleated or dispersed settlements in general during the later medieval and early post-medieval periods would clearly allow for a more grounded discussion of the layout and distribution patterns of booley dwellings. With excavation and palynology, meaningful examination of transhumant landscapes could indeed be pushed back into the medieval period.

In chapter 6, Costello explores the evolving nature of transhumance in the context of political, social and economic changes that were afoot from the seventeenth century onwards. He sheds light on the impact of capitalism on transhumant practices, posing a new challenge for scholars in historical archaeology to better understand the dynamic relationship between pastoralism and capitalism as it evolved between the sixteenth and late nineteenth centuries – a global economic trend that came to influence the daily lives and seasonal rhythm of these farmers. Farmers increasingly interacted with the growth of capitalism, which influenced the number and kinds of livestock that they kept and rendered the continued removal of people to booley sites either impractical or unnecessary. The exercise of landlord control in the hills and mountains also served to disrupt the dairy- and cattle-based booleying system – Blackface sheep were introduced in large numbers to Irish uplands and their dominance ultimately rendered seasonal relocation unnecessary. The activities of landlords and the Congested Districts Board also restructured tenants’ permanent settlements, which in turn undermined the traditional basis of transhumance. The dispersal of home dwellings and the division of infields weakened the co-operative basis that had characterized rundale strip farming. Permanent emigration to America or seasonal migration to Scotland, which reduced the availability of local labour was another factor in the decline of transhumant practices.

Costello’s wide-ranging research and incisive analysis on transhumance makes a valuable contribution to historical archaeology not just in Ireland, but in a wider European context. The book is well illustrated throughout with maps, plans and photographs that detail the various booley dwellings in their surrounding landscape. The great achievement of this book is that it brings to the fore a people and a way of life that has not been fully appreciated in Irish settlement studies hitherto, surely a commendable achievement.