Archaeological Explorations of Cultural Identity and Rural Economy in the North of Ireland: Goodland, County Antrim
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Archaeological Explorations of Cultural Identity and Rural Economy in the North of Ireland: Goodland, County Antrim Audrey J. Horning1
Renewed examination of an enigmatic settlement site perched atop a cliff above Murlough Bay in Goodland Townland, County Antrim, Northern Ireland calls into question long held ideas about Gaelic rural economy on the eve of the Ulster Plantation by reintroducing the complex cultural and political relationships between the north of Ireland and the Scottish isles. Long interpreted as temporary post-medieval booley huts associated with seasonal transhumance, recent reevaluation of the site suggests instead that Goodland represents a permanent seventeenth-century Highland Scottish village. Although the medieval linkages between the north of Ireland and the Scottish isles have long been acknowledged, twentieth-century sectarianism has subjugated awareness of the Highland (Roman Catholic) Scots focusing upon the legacy of the in-migration of Protestant Lowland Scots during the Ulster Plantation. Material evidence at Goodland re-introduces the Highland Scot to the contested landscape of contemporary Ulster identity, while also facilitating analysis of continuity, change, and cultural complexity in the rural economy of early modern Ireland. KEY WORDS: Identity; rural economy; Irish historical archaeology; contemporary politics.
INTRODUCTION Situated high on a cliff above Murlough Bay in County Antrim, Northern Ireland—a mere twelve miles from the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland—lies a remarkable cluster of more than 100 post-medieval earthen houses and relic field systems atop a well-documented Neolithic occupation (Fig. 1). The site itself, which 1 Correspondence
should be addressed to Audrey J. Horning, Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary, P.O. Box 8795, Williamsburg, Virginia, 23187-8795. 199 C 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 1092-7697/04/0900-0199/0
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Fig. 1. Map of Ireland showing location of Goodland site.
covers four townlands, has been scheduled (given statutory protection) because of the significance of its extensive Neolithic and scattered Bronze Age deposits. Arguably, it is actually the potential of its post-medieval remains and their resonance in the present which underscore the site’s significance. The houses have long been interpreted as temporary post-medieval booley huts, representing the isolated continuity of medieval Gaelic seasonal transhumance and by extension, the partial failure of English efforts to regularize land use, ownership, and tenure beginning in the
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seventeenth century. Yet re-evaluation of the site, combining an extensive digital landscape survey with documentary and comparative research, raises an entirely different possibility which challenges the dichotomous nature of contemporary Northern Irish identity. This dichotomous identity is rooted in historical memory and divided into two so-called ‘traditions’: Roman Catholic, self-identifying heirs of the “
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