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On the Edge of Improvement: Rathlin Island and the Modern World

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Abstract

This paper focuses on the archaeology of an island off the north coast of Ireland as a case study of the processes affecting rural life in the country in the Age of Improvement. The nature of changes to management of the landscape and architectural modes is discussed and an attempt is made to identify the agents of reform. The response and negotiation of the islanders to emergent commercialisation is discerned by changes to traditional houses and the material emerging from recent excavation work.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank my colleagues Colin Breen and Rosemary McConkey for help and advice, the Rathlin islanders especially Seamus and Peter McMullan, the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork (CAF) at Queens University Belfast, and the Environment and Heritage Service (Northern Ireland).

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  1. Centre for Maritime Archaeology, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Ulster, Coleraine, BT52 1SA, County Derry, Northern Ireland

    W. Forsythe

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Correspondence to W. Forsythe.

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Forsythe, W. On the Edge of Improvement: Rathlin Island and the Modern World. Int J Histor Archaeol 11, 221–240 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-007-0032-8

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