Cattle have been the mainstay of Irish farming since the Neolithic period began in Ireland almost 6000 years ago. Cattle, and especially cows, have been important in the life experiences of most Irish people, both directly and through legends such as the Tain Bo Cuailnge (The Cattle-raid of Cooley). In this book, diverse aspects of cattle in Ireland, from the circumstances of their first introduction to recent and ongoing developments in the management of grasslands--still the main food-source for cattle in Ireland--are explored in thirteen essays written by experts. New information is presented, and several aspects relating to cattle husbandry and the interactions of cattle and people that have hitherto received little or no attention are discussed.
About the Author: Michael O'Connell is Professor Emeritus at the National University of Ireland Galway, where he has been involved in research, teaching and administration for over four decades. He has co-ordinated multidisciplinary research projects on long-term environmental change with particular focus on farming impact. He has lectured and researched abroad, including at the Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research in Wilhelmshaven, the Institute for Geobotany at the University of Hanover and the Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum, Potsdam, supported by the Humboldt-Stiftung and DAAD. He is an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and serves on the editorial board of Vegetation History and Archaeobotany and is chairperson of the Agricultural History Society of Ireland. Fergus Kelly is a Senior Professor Emeritus in the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. His main academic interests are in the field of early Irish legal and social history, and he is editor of the Early Irish Law Series. His publications include an edition (with Thomas Charles-Edwards) of an Old Irish law-text on bee-keeping (1983), as well as a Guide to Early Irish Law (1988). In 1997, he published an account of early Irish farming, based mainly on the law-texts of the seventh and eighth centuries AD. His most recent publication is an edition of a fragmentary Old Irish law-text on marriage disputes (2014). He is an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and served as co-editor of Celtica, the journal of the School of Celtic Studies from 1999 to 2015. James McAdam is an Honorary Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Queen's University Belfast, and Head of the Crops, Grassland and Ecology branch in the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Northern Ireland. His research interests include the agronomy of hill and upland pastures, upland vegetation management, the introduction of silvopastoral systems, and the ecology and management of southern cool temperate grasslands. He acts as consultant to the United Kingdom Falkland Islands Trust, is editor of the Falkland Islands Journal, and serves on the editorial board of Biology and Environment and the Anales del Instituto de la Patagonia. He is a Fellow of the Council of Awards of Royal Agricultural Societies, and was awarded an OBE in 2014 for services to agriculture and research.