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Inishkillane; change and decline in the west of Ireland
Book by Brody, Hugh
226 pages, Hardcover
First published February 12, 1973
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 11, 2017
"Last one out, please turn off the lights"
I first read Hugh Brody's book twenty five years ago and thought it was excellent. Having forgotten why I thought so, I recently decided to re-read it. Yes, it is an excellent book. A few years back I also read his "Maps and Dreams" about an Indian people of northeastern British Columbia who "stood in the way" of a pipeline. Like INISHKILLANE, that was a most sensitively-written, imaginatively-constructed book. The present volume concerns the way of life and demoralization of country people in the west of Ireland up to the early 1970s. Brody criticizes some anthropologists of the past, for instance Arensberg, for being ahistorical, saying that what the earlier writers described as traditional was only post-famine Irish society, not ancient. The overall theme, which is presented more through what people feel than what they do, is that Irish rural society was dysfunctional by the time he studied it, racked by emigration, loneliness, and discontent, with many contradictions. He refers to the "despondency of the 1960s" and tries to explain why it existed through historical, social, and economic description. After the Great Famine, survivors fled and younger members of better-off families were forced to emigrate because land-owning fathers refused to break up their holdings. By the late 1930s, general dissatisfaction had begun. Urban values and urban life had gained more prestige so that those who did not emigrate felt "stuck" on the land with little chance to enjoy life. The summer return of successful emigrants created a fleeting holiday atmosphere in the village pubs, perhaps, but melancholy had struck deep roots. Mutual aid, a factor in Arensberg's description of Irish country life, had disappeared. Self-reliance was now expected, but with fewer and fewer people, with little chance for men to marry, it had become harder and harder to achieve. Emigration greatly reduced community life, producing insularity; marriage prospects fell steeply, and the traditional authority, status, and role structure at home and in the community changed dramatically. Brody looks at the church, at the shop owners and their relationships to the new society too. I was reminded of Lerner's "Grocer of Balgat" in his study of Turkey in the 1950s [The Passing of Traditional Society], an individual, very like the Irish store owner in Inishkillane, who stood on a cusp between the village and the wider world outside, who could be seen as a portent of the end of traditional society.
Ireland rose up at last to become a "Tiger" with a booming economy to which less fortunate peoples flowed. In 2010, beset by a collapse, emigration may start once again. It is highly appropriate to read a book which details the conditions which set up that emigration in the first place. Brody's work, sprinkled with poetry and relevant quotes from many sources, is ideal for anyone who wants to take a stab at understanding Ireland. And,if you are not an Irish specialist, but just wish to know what good anthropological writing can be, by all means read INISHKILLANE.
I first read Hugh Brody's book twenty five years ago and thought it was excellent. Having forgotten why I thought so, I recently decided to re-read it. Yes, it is an excellent book. A few years back I also read his "Maps and Dreams" about an Indian people of northeastern British Columbia who "stood in the way" of a pipeline. Like INISHKILLANE, that was a most sensitively-written, imaginatively-constructed book. The present volume concerns the way of life and demoralization of country people in the west of Ireland up to the early 1970s. Brody criticizes some anthropologists of the past, for instance Arensberg, for being ahistorical, saying that what the earlier writers described as traditional was only post-famine Irish society, not ancient. The overall theme, which is presented more through what people feel than what they do, is that Irish rural society was dysfunctional by the time he studied it, racked by emigration, loneliness, and discontent, with many contradictions. He refers to the "despondency of the 1960s" and tries to explain why it existed through historical, social, and economic description. After the Great Famine, survivors fled and younger members of better-off families were forced to emigrate because land-owning fathers refused to break up their holdings. By the late 1930s, general dissatisfaction had begun. Urban values and urban life had gained more prestige so that those who did not emigrate felt "stuck" on the land with little chance to enjoy life. The summer return of successful emigrants created a fleeting holiday atmosphere in the village pubs, perhaps, but melancholy had struck deep roots. Mutual aid, a factor in Arensberg's description of Irish country life, had disappeared. Self-reliance was now expected, but with fewer and fewer people, with little chance for men to marry, it had become harder and harder to achieve. Emigration greatly reduced community life, producing insularity; marriage prospects fell steeply, and the traditional authority, status, and role structure at home and in the community changed dramatically. Brody looks at the church, at the shop owners and their relationships to the new society too. I was reminded of Lerner's "Grocer of Balgat" in his study of Turkey in the 1950s [The Passing of Traditional Society], an individual, very like the Irish store owner in Inishkillane, who stood on a cusp between the village and the wider world outside, who could be seen as a portent of the end of traditional society.
Ireland rose up at last to become a "Tiger" with a booming economy to which less fortunate peoples flowed. In 2010, beset by a collapse, emigration may start once again. It is highly appropriate to read a book which details the conditions which set up that emigration in the first place. Brody's work, sprinkled with poetry and relevant quotes from many sources, is ideal for anyone who wants to take a stab at understanding Ireland. And,if you are not an Irish specialist, but just wish to know what good anthropological writing can be, by all means read INISHKILLANE.
February 9, 2016
This is a good outsiders sketch of the communities so commonly featured in the writings of John B Keane. It's an enjoyable easy read, every page or two includes incidental quotes from other sources that augment the theme of each chapter. The graphs and charts are well matched to the narrative and provide a good perspective.
What I did find unsettling was what wasn't talked about, nor even hinted at. But I wouldn't be surprised that the very private home lives that the author described so well would have kept him oblivious to the practices unearthed in recent decades regarding unwanted pregnancies and how the church facilitated the removal of such inconveniences from the community, such as it was.
Having said that the author is very unsparing when describing the loneliness of these rapidly depopulating neighbourhoods, the precarious state of bachelor farmers waiting too long for land to pass to them and then being too old to seek a wife.
The most important thing I took from this book was how the rural economy he described so well came into being in reaction to the failure of the previous practice of land subdivision indicative of subsistence farming which collapsed during the famine. The fearsome specter of the famine haunts these communities and only an inalienable memory of belonging keeps people from walking away entirely from their ancestral roots.
What I did find unsettling was what wasn't talked about, nor even hinted at. But I wouldn't be surprised that the very private home lives that the author described so well would have kept him oblivious to the practices unearthed in recent decades regarding unwanted pregnancies and how the church facilitated the removal of such inconveniences from the community, such as it was.
Having said that the author is very unsparing when describing the loneliness of these rapidly depopulating neighbourhoods, the precarious state of bachelor farmers waiting too long for land to pass to them and then being too old to seek a wife.
The most important thing I took from this book was how the rural economy he described so well came into being in reaction to the failure of the previous practice of land subdivision indicative of subsistence farming which collapsed during the famine. The fearsome specter of the famine haunts these communities and only an inalienable memory of belonging keeps people from walking away entirely from their ancestral roots.
February 20, 2009
When Brody wrote this book, County Donegal, and most of the west of Ireland was poor and depressed. Brody tells of this terrible time. Young women and non-inheriting farmers' sons hung around the shop, determined not to marry until they migrated to the big city. No sensible woman would marry a farmer's son who would inherit the farm. The late-marrying bachelor farmers, doomed to inherit the parental home, sat in an alcoholic haze staring through the bottom of a beer glass at a stagnant future on stagnant land. Coming to life in the summer, these hopeless men, losing their youth, would chase the occasional female tourist, only to lapse into gloom when the summer was gone. The book is an astonishing, ground-breaking tour de force, one of very few that encouraged me and others to enter a whole new era of Irish anthropology.
Strangely, no sooner was the book with the publisher, than large-scale tourism hit the west of Ireland. Suddenly, to own a farm was to discover gold under every forth. From being desolate and depressed a farming family in the west of Ireland became miraculously prosperous. Women formed queues to marry bachelor farmers. Salvation was at hand.
Strangely, no sooner was the book with the publisher, than large-scale tourism hit the west of Ireland. Suddenly, to own a farm was to discover gold under every forth. From being desolate and depressed a farming family in the west of Ireland became miraculously prosperous. Women formed queues to marry bachelor farmers. Salvation was at hand.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews