Written 4/9/1999.
Donegal’s Changing Traditions by Eugenia Shanklin
The Celts conquered Ireland well before the birth of Christ, fought among themselves for a while, then eventually divided the land into four kingdoms, Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connacht. They then proceeded to settle into one of those little-detailed “golden eras” during which they occupied themselves by raiding each other’s herds. Reigns were counted glorious or not according to how many cattle raids had been carried out. When Christianity hit Ireland, many things changed, but cattle remained a staple of Irish life. Methods of raising livestock predated Christianity, and some of those customs were still rigorously observed in Southwest Donegal until the twentieth century. Domestic animal production has been the focus of economic and prestige activities for more than two thousand years. Livestock production systems may be transformed but they will not be eradicated or destroyed by “modern” conditions. Many of what start out as innovative practices will quickly be incorporated into the systems as “traditional” methods. This is not a cynical behavior on the part of the farmers, it is just one of the ways in which a long-standing pastoral adaptation is maintained. Everything old, after all, was once new.
Traditions are active agents in the process of modernization. Ireland is “one of the most exciting places in the world” (pg 8) to study these active, on-going traditions. Traditions in Ireland are used in four main ways. First, traditions can be used as a sanctions for innovation or new customs. Second, it can be used as a storage device for preserving important parts of a behavioral or ecological system. Third, tradition may be used as a way of identifying the people who share a common heritage, to establish ethnic identity. The fourth use, which is related to the third, is as a way of comparing the “glorious past” with the not-so-glorious realities of the present.
The Fair of Magheramore illustrates the first use of tradition. The Fair originated in the Celtic era as a ritual assembly, celebrating the Celtic new year. It was celebrated for three days in Donegal, beginning on November 1st. The customs associated with the Fair changed radically in the nineteenth century, but the name did not. The site was moved from Magheramore to Ardara, the date changed to October 1st, and the cattle displays from the old festival replaced by sheep sales. The “traditional” Fair was changed beyond recognition. The Fair had its origins in tradition in a passive way, in time-honored, respected beliefs. The changes had not occurred in the lifetime of anyone still living, and to them the October sheep fair was the tradition and the name Magheramore a curious attachment. The fact that there had been an active transformation of this fair in the nineteenth century was unimportant. Tradition served as a sanction for the new ritual.
It might be argued that because these changes had taken place long before anyone alive had been born, they could be accurately labeled as traditional. However, many other changes that did occur within informants’ lifetimes were also labeled as traditions and were considered to be in accord with age-old customs and practices. Whether the changes occur within “living memory” or not, what matters is the consensus that something is traditional and not whether it can in fact be shown to be a time-honored custom.
The second use is as a storage device for behavioral or ecological systems. Myths are often related as if they had actually happened to that person (or a close friend or relative) in great detail. There is usually no clue that the story is a myth except a negative one: when stories are told about a real person, the teller will add that the person has been dead “these hundred years” or so. For example, a story about Finn McCool is related by an informant, about Finn hunting a wild boar (which have been extinct in Ireland since the twelfth century), as if it had happened to a neighbor last week, although the story is actually an old Irish myth. In the tale, Finn locates the fierce creature in one valley and chases it through a pass between the mountains into another valley, losing his hunting dogs in the process. Finally Finn and the boar battle to the death at the other end of the valley. The place names in the story correspond to the townland boundaries or boundary markers, and although the details of the story might vary widely, the boundary markers never do. This particular myth teaches the boundaries of the townlands in such a vivid way that even though the details of the story may be forgotten or misremembered, the boundary markers are recalled in correct sequence. Time has been collapsed or ignored as an unimportant detail, but the boundary markers, the important features of the story, are clearly remembered.
An example of the ecological reasoning behind some traditions is the “tradition” of bringing the sheep down from the hills on St. Patrick’s Day. The custom until the beginning of the twentieth century was to being the cattle up to the hill on St. Patrick’s. The custom was inverted or reversed and sheep were brought down instead. Bringing the sheep down on a “traditional” day is a very effective storage device and many other traditional practices can be viewed in this way. The care given to cattle has the effect of recycling resources. Keeping the cattle inside at night yields manure, which is used to fertilize the fields on which the cattle graze. But cattle are kept in at night, according to the farmers, because it’s a tradition and “we’ve always done it that way” (pg 23). In addition, if there were no tradition of bringing the sheep down on a certain day, each farmer would have to make the decision when to bring them down on his own. Some might bring them down too early, some too late. St. Patrick’s Day is an effective solution; in most years the early grass is well established in the valleys by this time and the mistakes that could be made by bringing the sheep down too early or too late are minimized. Tradition protects farmers against themselves, given their difficult, unpredictable environment.
The third function is seen in the statement “we’ve always done it that way”. The emphasis should be placed on the “we” rather than the “always”. By aligning their customs and traditions with those of the ancestors, the farmers are identifying themselves as a group. There are two ways of stating this, either as “our grandfathers did it that way” or as “we’ve done it that way ever since the British came”. Both the “grandfather” response and the “centuries of British oppression” response refer to tradition but they were used to explain different phenomena. The grandfather response was used to explain customs that were liked or approved of, while the “centuries of British oppression” response was used to explain all the rest (any custom that was disliked, disapproved of, or not entirely understood). For example, Southwest Donegal is largely treeless, and the deforestation process began in the first millennium after Christ, as a result of cultivation techniques in common use then and the climate of the time. The people of modern Donegal attribute the lack of trees to “centuries of British oppression”, and some (such as my grandfather, who grew up in Donegal) go so far as to say that the English cut down all the trees and sent them to England. The deforestation was actually cause by the Irish “grandfathers”, but because this fact is something the people do not like, they blame the British.
In Donegal, it is customary to view the “old days” as the good times and the present as bad times. A common belief is that everyone was happier and less isolated in the past than today. The “good old days” include debt slavery, high infant mortality rates and dirt floors, as well as widespread starvation. They also included Cromwell’s War (which resulted in the Flight of the Earls), the Land Wars, the “Troubles”, and the Civil War of the 1920s, not to mention the Great Potato Famine of 1845-1849. But all these have become part of the honored traditions of the good old days. Even the Great Famine can be used to illustrate the good old days and the ingenuity of the ancestors. Patrick McGill, a Donegal writer, after recounting the centuries of British oppression that cause the Great Famine, claims that Southwest Donegal was not his as hard by the famine as other areas of Ireland, but the historical account he himself gives contradicts this claim. Presumably this contraction is because the survivors of the Great Famine were his ancestors, and the ancestors, by definition, are the source of all good things, while the British are the source of all evil. Working on these premises, written history can be dismissed easily. This kind of reasoning is the essence of Irish thinking about tradition: the past may be purified, or it may be disregarded or the practices inverted. Whatever happens, “tradition” is always the winner.
In the distant past, there were two pivotal institutions in Celtic society, the fine or joint family (a landholding unit) and the tuath (lit. “countrymen”), sometimes translated as a petty kingdom but more accurately a chiefdom or clan. Loyalties were first to the fine and then to the tuath of the area. The tuatha proliferated and factionalism was rife. Cattle-rustling became a popular and violent blood-sport, a “test of manhood and noble status” (pg 38). Heroism was judged by daring cattle raids on the rival tuatha. The Celts shared most of the beliefs and practices about their animals that today are found among African pastoralists, such as the use of blood for food and the belief that a cow would not give milk unless her calf was near. Most disappeared with the advent of English rule. The last mention of bloodletting, during the Great Famine, was regarded with horror. The Celts put great emphasis on their cattle: the lives of the early saints are filled with miraculous accounts that illustrate their power over cattle. Many features of Celtic society have survived its leaders: the primary dependence on cattle and cattle products, the peasant clachan with its mixed agricultural-pastoral base, the calendar holidays that still delineate seasonal activities associated with livestock, the rituals from which livestock fairs took their time and place. The pastoral elements of the Celtic legacy still persist in Irish society.
Discontinuities between the recent past and the present, caused by the loss of indigenous leadership after the Flight of the Earls in 1607, can be illustrated through the role of the intermediary. This role has several contexts: social (matchmaking and fighting), political (party secretaries and bureaucrats), and economic (cattle-sale intermediaries and “gombeenmen”). “Gombeen” is the Gaelic word for a loan. The word is used in a generic sense, as there were gombeenwomen as well.
The role of the matchmaker was the only one fully developed in social relations. In matchmaking the intermediary was a neighbor, not a relative. Certain individuals, often a well-known shopkeeper or local politician, became well known locally as successful marriage brokers. The formal role of the matchmaker has disappeared from Southwest Donegal, partly because of high emigration and partly because of better transportation that allows young people to attend dances in villages up to fifty miles away.
The other area where the role of the intermediary figures heavily is in fights. When conflict has already arisen its resolution must be undertaken by a relative instead of a neighbor, but not for all fights. The appropriate intermediary is always a kinsman when locals fight. This man will break up the fight on the grounds of injury to the family name, the humiliation of it all, and so on. The appropriate intermediary in a fight between local men and outsiders is the policeman. In one instance (pg 57), a fight erupted in a tavern between a group of local men and some tourists from Northern Ireland. Damage was restricted to the pub owner’s glassware and furnishings (and the nose of one of the tourists). The local policeman was called, but he refused to come. In the village the locals believed he should have come. Most were apprehensive about what might have happened, not what did. However, if the local policeman had intervened in a fight between locals, these same villagers would have been outraged. He simply applied the same norm to that incident as he did to all local fights.
In the political sense, the term intermediary is still appropriate, but the distinction should also be made between patron and broker. The Irish party secretary is a patron; he chooses the favors he will confer. The Irish bureaucrat is a broker, serving as information conduit for the national government. Both try to serve local interests in their dealings with the national government. The secretary’s role is to be a liaison between the local people and the party officials. Any activity in which an individual petitioner has a case to bring before an agency of the county or national government is a legitimate sphere of operation for the secretary. Local bureaucrats are civil servants, not political appointees. Their duties include the administration of government loans and grants for farm improvements. They transmit information between local and national agencies but their primary function is to provide information about these grants and loans at the local level and help farmers make applications.
In economic transactions there also existed an intermediary or go-between, who served only as a contact between two sides, and a patron who specified the goods and services to be put into circulation and who guarded his critical functions and exclusivity. An intermediary was called upon to “divide the difference” (pg 64). Most cattle fairs are attended by two “regular” intermediaries, but if both men were related to the seller, another person would be pressed into service. It is thought that a buyer would be offended to learn that an intermediary was a relative of the seller, although this is rarely the case. In contrast to the cattle-sale intermediary, whose role only lasts a day, the gombeenman’s role as a mediator involved protecting his own interests. The gombeenman’s role shifted from broker to patron and back again. The gombeenman readily adapted any profit-making scheme for his own purposes. He did not restrict his activities to local trade, however. Using his political power he converted the crafts industry into a national and then international business. Irish tweeds also came under the gombeenman’s interests. Gombeenmen reigned for several decades, but permanent outmigration and the government dole eventually put an end to the debt-bondage system through which the gombeenman wielded so much power.
“Traditions” or customs are frequently changed or inverted in many contexts to meet current needs. Much of what people “remember” has to do with what presently is, not with a reliable assessment of what has gone before. The most important use made of tradition in Southwest Donegal is as a means of ethnic identity, the “we” in “We’ve always done it that way”. The formulation of ethnic identity is a continuing process of “saying” (pg 153), whether or not what is being said is attributed to centuries of British oppression, whether what is said is conscious or not. Irish traditions are not dying, as has been said by many anthropologists. Rather, a new variant of Irish tradition is being formed. We should not be confused by the difference, a notable one in Ireland, between history and tradition. Traditions are best treated as symbolic forms, not realities, so their adaptive significance can be shown in the formation of the Irish world view.