Dr. Eugene Costello will speak on on the traditional Irish practice of "booleying"--the term used for the seasonal movement of people and cattle between low-lying farms and remote summer pastures in hilly terrain.
Participants will be:
Eugene Costello, Keough-National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, University of Notre Dame
Mary Beaudry, Professor of Archeology, Anthropology, and Gastronomy, Boston University
Stephen Rippon, Professor of Landscape Archeology, University of Exeter
Kieran O'Conor, Senior Lecturer, Department of Archeology, National University of Ireland, Galway, will moderate the panel.
Co-sponsor: Department of Anthropology
Eugene Costello earned his doctorate from National University of Ireland, Galway in 2016 and has served as guest lecturer, seminar leader and fieldwork demonstrator in the university’s Department of Archeology.
Dr. Costello’s research interests lie in historical farming societies and their cultural landscapes, especially in Ireland. His particular research interest is a practice called “booleying,” which is the traditional term used for the seasonal movement of people and cattle between low-lying farms and remote summer pastures in hilly terrain, i.e. transhumance.
Dr. Costello will speak on the traditional Irish practice of "booleying" -- the term used for the seasonal movement of people and cattle between low-lying farms and remote summer pastures in hilly terrain. Booleying was a small-scale form of transhumant pastoralism, which has been practiced in many regions around the world since animals were first domesticated. Focusing on Ireland during the period, AD1600-1900, Dr. Costello will examine how farmers managed cattle in hill and mountain pastures, and how they themselves adapted to these difficult landscapes. He will talk about the archaeological evidence for summer settlement and herding, and use it alongside ethnohistorical information to re-examine a number of key historical trends in the Irish landscape, namely, population growth, Improvement, and economic integration.