Eugene 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.
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. One of the more distinctive features of booleying culture was that, usually, it was adolescent females who travelled seasonally with the livestock. While previous historical accounts and surveys have failed to elucidate these young women’s experiences, the physical and cultural landscape they inhabited still reflects, in subtle ways, their presence. Calling upon the archaeological traces of their summer dwellings and the stories, songs, and names that booleying people gave to places over time, this culture can, he points out, provide an alternative perspective on rural society and the importance of the young woman within it.
Originally posted at irishstudies.nd.edu.