Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology) | John C. Messenger

Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology) | John C. Messenger | Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland

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Inis Beag: Isle of...

	Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology) John C. Messenger Waveland Press, 1983 - 136 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Inis Beag is a fictitious name for one of the many inhabited, rocky, barren islands of the Irish Gaeltacht. Messenger's descriptive analysis of this closed community includes the subsistence, material culture, social organization/control, and religion/values dimensions, as well as a strong focus on folklore, Christian reinterpretations of pagan elements, music, song, and dance. A very human picture emerges of these islanders, folk people in almost every respect.

Filled with facts

This book is an ethnography of an Irish Island. The name Inis Beag itself is a fictitious name, resorted to for the privacy of the small population of the island. The author and his wife lived on the island for several years during the late 1950s, and this is a record of the information they learned about the island, its traditions, and its culture. The book includes chapters on the island itself (history and climate), traditional ways of making a living (agriculture, farming, and crafts), village and family structures, religion, and emigration. The book is amply illustrated with high quality black-and-white photographs. At the end of the book are a section of references and an annotated list of suggested readings. There is no index.

From Messenger's description, this is a very conservative society (or at least it was so in the late 1950s). Most of the islanders follow age-old occupations. (One interesting description was how the farmers create soil from seaweed mixed with dung.) They are subject to very tight societal controls administered by the priest and headmaster of the school. They are extremely private about sexual matters to the point that young people never receive any instruction about sex up to or even following their wedding day. Male patients are unwilling to undress in front of the island nurse. As Messenger explains "Marriage is looked on [by males] with trepidation, or at least as something less then desirable." As a result, the average age for marriage for men was 35 years, and for women, 25 years, and premarital sex is unknown. About a third of the population never marries at all. Between the aversion to taking on the responsibility of a family, and the need to emigrate for paid work, the population of the island is decreasing. Those who stay on the island are prone to feelings of depression and hypochondria. All in all, it doesn't sound like a very cheery place to live.

Messenger is very fond of statistics and quantification. He seems to have surveyed residents and quantified their answers for just about every topic. For example, when describing the importance of weather prediction skills to the islanders, he notes the existence of some 250 signals traditionally used for predicting the weather. There are 40 varieties of fish, thirty-two householders own 3-man canoes, and so on. Such statistics show Messenger's meticulous efforts at getting his fact straight, however, they can make the reading a bit dry.

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Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland

This anthropological study is written colourfully and is very descriptive in the diverse matter that it covers. It is easliy read and at the same time is an enjoyable experience. After spending a year of study there myself, it brought back many wonderful memories, as well as ideas for further research. It is warm and charming, as well as accessible for the college student or interested reader of Irish culture.

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