Some Primitive Structures in Achill Island

Abstract

During a visit to Achill Island in 1946 the writer made notes and drawings of certain primitive types of buildings still surviving in ruin or in use, and of which no adequate record had been made. The intrinsic interest of these, as well as their significance in the wider comparative study of peasant architecture in the British Isles, makes their publication desirable.Achill Island is in Co. Mayo, off the west coast of Ireland, though now joined to the mainland by a bridge and road across Achill Sound. The buildings described here all lie in the neighbourhood of Dooagh and Keem, at the western end of the island. The most important series is that associated with the practice of ‘booleying’, or the transference of cattle to summer pastures, which approximates to the use of shielings in the Scottish Highlands or of the hafod in Wales. This custom, and its associated folk-lore, has been discussed in a series of articles in Irish and English which includes a study of the area under discussion, though without adequate plans or structural details of the buildings involved.