SOCIETY AND SETTLEMENT IN GLENDALOUGH ... - Ian Cantwell

The foundation of ecclesiastical settlements at this period is also associated with anincrease of agricultural productivity due to improvements in dairying practises 103 andtechnology. The proposal by Duignan that ploughing technology and iron shares cameinto Ireland with Early Christianity is now under revision as Kelly and Brady argue thatthe coulter is a later innovation from the tenth century and that mouldboard andwheeled plough were unknown before the 12th century. Ryan 104 believes that newsettlement types and social organisation, including Christian institutions, may have beensignificant in the development ofMedieval Irish farming. Stout points out an economicdichotomy in the Vitaes of the Saints which associates the miracles of youth withpastoral activities and the miracles of adulthood with tillage 105 and this reflects theecclesiastical dietary bias to vegetarianism.Another area oftechnological advance was in the area ofmilling with the introductionof the horizontal water mill from the 7th centuryl06. Three granite millstones havesurvived from Glendalough which indicates the importance of the settlement as amilling centre. As monasteries were not supposed to personally profit from work thepotential ofadded value would have been significant as a source ofwealth creation107.According to the Annals of Tigemach the mill of Glendalough, along with the bridge,was swept away in a great flood108. Storm floods remained a problem in the valley upto the early 19th centuryl09 until the Irish Mining Company, reputedly, conducteddrainage works 1 10.103Stout M. (1997), op. cit. p. 132, quoting McConnick F., Cows, Ringforts and the origins ofEarlyChristian Ireland, Emania, xiii, p.35104R)'3Il M., Settlement in late prehistory, IQUA Frank Mitchell Symposium: Extended abstracts,1998, pp. 13-14, who swnmarises Duignan M, Irish Agriculture in Early Medieval Times, l.R.SA.I.,Vol. 74, 1944; Brady N., Reconstructing an Irish plough, I Jornadus Internacionales sabreTechnologia Agraria Tradicional, Madrid, 1992; Kelly F., Early Irish Farming, Dublin. 1997105Stout M., (1997), op. cit. pp. 129-30I06Long, op. cit. p. 171-2107 ibid ..108ibid p, 172~~9Topographica/ Dictionary ofIreland, ed. Lewis S., London, 1837, p. 660Oorerry Doherty, pers. comm.29