Morphology of transhumant settlements in post-medieval south connemara: A case study in adaptation

As recently as the early twentieth century, and especially during the nineteenth century and earlier, a type of small-scale transhumance known as booleying prevailed in many parts of Ireland. This was a strategy whereby farmers took their livestock – usually dairy cows – to rough grazing in marginal areas for the summer and lived with them there in what are referred to as ‘booley’ huts or houses. The cattle were then brought back to the home farm in late autumn and over-wintered there. The term ‘booleying’ is derived from the Irish word buaile, which signifies a milking-place in summer pasturage, a fold or a dung-yard (Ó Dónaill, 1977: 152–53).