ABSTRACT
The centrality of ethnography to the discipline of anthropology continues to be reiterated - by new tropes and through contested meanings - both from within the discipline. In contrast, the Irish research locale contained 507 households differentiated by strata (lifestyle) and class. It was these differences which structured rights and obligations, whilst kinship played a more muted role, although it contributed to the reproduction of class differences and provided an emic map for daily social interaction. In fact, the town's navigation had been declining from at least the late eighteenth century because of silting and because of competition from other modes of transport. The process, however, was cut short. In August 1841, the Irish Municipal Reform Act abolished Thomastown Corporation, as it did most others in Ireland and, with it, the commissioners and their powers.
