To Leave the Land So as Not to Leave the Land: The Religious Motivations of Seasonal Migrants, Including Women, in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This chapter seeks to answer the question as to why, even though subsistence conditions militated against continuing to eke out an existence on unproductive holdings, many inhabitants in Ireland’s western counties did just that. Particularly in the west of Ireland, Irish women and men found ways to remain on their lands and in their dwellings despite the enduring proclivity for permanent migration from Ireland during the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. The answer lies in the Irish penchant to engage in a variety of vernacular religious practices reiterated via expressive cultural forms like proverbs and reinforced via plays and films. In addition, an otherworld feminine perspective permeated their consciousness. For the Irish, their implicit religion—a complex network of symbols and practices—remained intact, so much so that seasonal migration endured, and the Irish preserved their homelands.