Paper Short Abstract:

Based on more than a decade of field research, this paper explores human-environment entanglements as expressed through archaeology, place-names, legends and anecdotes, and the lived experience of pastoral farming in Inishbofin off the west coast of Connemara.

Paper Abstract:

The use of triads to encapsulate traditional wisdom has a rich history in Ireland. This presentation will adopt that form to distill local reflections on human-environment entanglements on the island of Inishbofin. Seven kilometres off the coast of Connemara, Inishbofin is home to nearly 200 people, who strive to balance the stewardship of local heritage and a burgeoning tourist trade. Small-scale pastoral farming remains an important source of identity and livelihood, one increasingly tied to agri-environmental subsidies. A distinctive tradition of maritime pastoralism, involving the seasonal movement of livestock by boat between small islands in the Inishbofin archipelago, endures but is in steep decline. A decade of participant observation with some of the last practitioners of this tradition reveals how place-names, local legends and anecdotes, and daily experiences of working land and sea act as venues for reckoning relationships between islanders, strangers, and the other-than-human world. What emerges is a model of human dwelling premised on the creative adaptation of traditional ecological knowledge and embodied skills to foster the entwined livelihoods of various creatures. In particular, I will argue that a key pastoral skill - to imagine the world simultaneously from multiple other-than-human perspectives - offers an alternative to 'rewilding’ as a template for environmental stewardship.