ABSTRACT
After five centuries, the damp climate defeated the farmers. Wet bog, with its mosses, heathers, and moor grass, spread inexorably across the hills. The grasslands vanished, the cattle herders retreated inland, and the boundary walls disappeared under peat. County Mayo was a peaceful part of Ireland. No Roman armies or social catastrophes disrupted life at Céide Fields, ensuring a high level of cultural continuity in this corner of Ireland. Seamus Caulfield’s family has lived at Belderigg for generations. Thanks to his research, he feels he can safely claim himself as an “aborigine,” a distant descendant of the local farmers of some 200 generations ago.
