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Donegal Survivals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

E. Estyn Evans
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Extract

Recent articles in Antiquity have drawn attention to the rich sources of material for study in ethnology and archaeology which lie almost untapped in the dwellings of peasant Britain. For Ireland three papers by Åke Campbell1 break new ground in a virgin field and increase the heavy debt which Irish scientific studies owe to Scandinavia; and the interest roused has been fostered by a short statement on the need for enquiry into house-types issued by Colonel R. G. Berry. The Irish Folklore Commission has gathered much information on this and related topics, while a regional survey of the housetypes of north Kerry, clearly inspired by Campbell's work, has lately appeared. The participation of continental workers in this field is further illustrated in the ‘Contributions to the study of the tangible material culture of the Gaoltacht’ published by L. Mühlhausen.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 13 , Issue 50 , June 1939 , pp. 207 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1939

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References

1 ‘Irish Fields and Houses’, Béaloideas, 1935, 5, 57–74;Google Scholar ‘Notes on the Irish House’, Folkliv, 1937, 1, 207–234;Google Scholar 1938, 11, 173–96.

2 ‘Irish Long-houses’. Irish Naturalists’ Journal, June 1938, 63–4.Google Scholar

3 Danaher, K., Journ. Roy. Soc. Ant. Ireland. December 1938, 226–40.Google Scholar

4 Journ. Cork Hist, and Arch. Soc. 1933, 66–71; 1934, 4–51–Google Scholar

5 Hornell, J., British Coracles and Irish Curraghs; [a review of this book will be published in an early number of ANTIQUITY.-EDITOR]. Estyn Evans, ‘The rowing–curraghs of Sheephaven’, Ulster Journ. of Archaeology (1939), 28–31.Google Scholar

6 ‘Some survivals of the Irish openfield system’, Geography, March 1939, 24–36.Google Scholar

7 Harris, S., ‘Some notes on field systems’, Sociological Review, July 1928.Google Scholar

8 Campbell, Folkliv, loc. cit., 222.Google Scholar

9 Lord George Hill, Facts from Gweedore, 5th ed. (1887), 41.Google Scholar

10 Cf. the wall-beds formerly found in the Hebridean black houses and shielings. Curwen, E.C., ANTIQUITY, September 1938, 261–89Google Scholar.

11 McEvoy, J., Statistical Survey of County Tyrone (1802), 51.Google Scholar

12 Campbell, Folkliv, loc. cit., 228.Google Scholar

13 Peate, I.C., ANTIQUITY, December 1936, 448–59Google Scholar.

14 Campbell, Béaloideas, 5, 70.Google Scholar

15 Lord George Hill, loc. tit., 17.

16 Cf. Mitchell, A., The Past in the Present (1880), 60, fig. 39, for examples from Lewis and Shetland.Google Scholar

17 Campbell, Folkliv, loc. cit., 234.Google Scholar

18 Lord George Hill, loc. cit. Cf. his description of certain Donegal houses in 1838. ‘Four walls, built of large rough stones (sometimes they are merely sods), put together without mortar; no chimney, a front and back door (a contrivance or arrangement for taking advantage of the wind) a small aperture in the wall, to be called, in courtesy, a window, but having no glass in it, a dried sheep skin being its substitute’.

19 Childe, V.G., Skara Brae (1931).Google Scholar

20 ANTIQUITY, September 1938, 289.

21 This device, still widely employed for holding down haycocks, would seem to be ancestral to the present method of plugging the stones in the wall. An alternative improvement on the ‘hanging stones’ is found in the practice of letting the stones rest on the thatch just above the eave, as in Connaught.

22 Cf. Richardson, P., ‘Sweathouses in County Cavan’. Ulster Journ. of Archaeology, January 1939, 32–5.Google Scholar In parts of Mayo and Kerry beehive huts are still used as milk houses and for storing turf. Cf. Campbell, Folkliv 1938,11, 173–76. In County Louth they are in use as pig-styes.Google Scholar

23 Lord George Hill, loc. cit., 24. Finds of ‘bog–butter’ hint at an old method of storing dairy–produce.