ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the major themes in the anthropology of Ireland which emerged from this touchstone, and it begins our review of some alternative anthropologies which, although they may have had their roots in the more traditional bases of social and cultural anthropology, in Ireland and elsewhere, struck out in new directions. A series of critiques and overviews began to appear in the 1980s; all in essence were attempting to reset the research agenda for Ireland. The changes in anthropological interest and research design were partly a reaction to the transformations which both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic had experienced. Political economy approaches became especially apparent in the historical anthropology which developed in a burst of intellectual activity in the 1980s and 1990s, becoming one of the most impressive bodies of Irish anthropological research, and one which has increasingly engaged scholars outside of Ireland.
