The Origins, Archaeology, and Modern History of Irish Hedgerows

Citation: Devereux, E.J., (2025), “The Origins, Archaeology, and Modern History of Irish Hedgerows”, EcoFoodDev, https://www.ecofooddev.com/the-origins-archaeology-and-modern-history-of-irish-hedgerows/

To fully recognise the importance of hedgerows, we must understand their evolution and history. By looking at the origins and past management of hedgerows, we can a gain better grasp of:

• Their importance from a social and cultural perspective, and the place of hedgerows in our cultural heritage;
• Their potential in future farming sustainability – particularly from the perspective of their potential as genetic banks for tillage crops via heirloom plants and crop-to-wild relative research (later discussed and see: https://www.ecofooddev.com/sustainable-agri-genetics-crop-wild-relatives-cwrs-crop-to-wild-gene-flow/);
• We can gain an understanding of past agricultural management practices, practices that we can use in future farming practice;
• We can open a window into environmental legacy issues.

It cannot be stated enough that to understand where we are going, we must understand where we have been. If we are seeking ways to farm that are pro-environmental as well as productive, past ways of farming offer such insights. For example, the potential of clover and mixed cover crops in animal fodder is an example of a common past farming practice (that is, non-reliance on a mono-crop in the form of ryegrass, Lolium perenne and using a mix of grasses/legumes as fodder) that is now at the forefront of agri-environmental research, see Teagasc: https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/grassland/grass10/clover/white-clover/#:~:text=Research%20is%20being%20undertaken%20at,lower%20N%20surplus).

Prior to the 17^th century, the landscape of Ireland was far more open, with far fewer established hedgerows dividing up farmland and individual settlements. Although much of the latticed pattern of hedgerows seen today were planted by farmers in more recent centuries, it is the case that boundary marking of land has a long history in Ireland and in Britain stretching back thousands of years, as attested to by archaeological and palaeoecological evidence. I consider the development of land boundaries in British history as related to Ireland, given Ireland was a colony of the British Empire for a significant portion of its history and almost all of its modern agricultural history.

Prehistoric Field Division

In Ireland, dividing fields with a boundary is a centuries-old farming tradition. Some of our earliest field boundary features (many of which later evolved into hedgerows) are stone walls. Stone walls are important ecological features on a landscape, providing ample habitat opportunities for lizards, spiders and various insects, small mammals such as shrews, mice, and bats, and as refugia for plants, mosses, lichens and ferns, and are themselves ecologically diverse (Hollingsworth & Collier, 2020).  Irish stone wall construction has also been added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/d63f3-irelands-dry-stone-construction-receives-unesco-recognition/

Neolithic Ireland

The Céide Fields, near Ballycastle, Co. Mayo, are recognised as one of the oldest and largest Neolithic farming sites in the world, dating to between 4000–2400 BC. This agricultural system consisted of fields divided by stone walls located in a blanket bog landscape (O’Connell et al., 2020). The exceptional preservation of the Céide Fields is attributed to the growth of blanket-bog peat, which began in the mid-Holocene (the Holocene is the period of time covering the last ~12,000 years, marked by the origin of farming, see: https://www.ecofooddev.com/crop-cultivations-astonishing-age-1000s-of-years-of-change/), providing ideal anaerobic conditions for archaeological preservation. Note: It is essential to distinguish the Céide Fields from “Celtic fields,” which are arable field systems from later periods in different regions of Europe.

Archaeological surveys at Céide Fields have revealed that the field system is much larger than initially thought, covering an area of over 1000 hectares. The stone-wall system, which is a characteristic feature of the fields, extends across this large area. The pollen records from Céide Fields and Garrynagran in north Mayo provide evidence of significant land clearance during the Neolithic period for farming. The construction of the stone-wall field system at Céide Fields likely occurred during an early intensive phase of woodland clearance, which is unique for European Neolithic contexts. A lull in farming activity occurred during the middle and late Neolithic, marked by a phenomenon called the “pine flush,” indicating climate change and the expansion of bog pine and blanket bog in the region. Hence, palaeoecological data as detailed in O’Connell et al. (2020) support the importance and intensity of farming during the early Neolithic in north Mayo.

Bronze Age Ireland

Hedges, earthen banks, and stone walls have also been evidenced in Ireland from Bronze Age contexts, used as a method to enclose cattle. O’Brien & Comber (2009) discuss a system of ancient field walls and settlement features (similar to that of the Neolithic Céide Fields) dating to possibly the Bronze Age located in southwest Ireland on the Beara Peninsula. Their volume, “Local worlds: early settlement landscapes and upland farming in south-west Ireland”, details, for example, the case of Cloontreem Valley, Co. Cork, where the more recent agricultural practice of peat cutting has exposed archaeological farming features such as stone walls. It is evident that ancient stone walls in the Cloontreem Valley were built to create fields, though the significance of this land reorganisation is uncertain. These fields were possibly used to demarcate land ownership, to manage and protect farm animals, and to enclose cultivated land. The management and control of livestock in large numbers demands a certain understanding of animal behaviour based on experience inherited from previous generations – suggesting a certain antiquity to the practice of building field boundaries even by the Bronze Age. In terms of form, many of these fields may have originally included features such as hedges, ditches, and droveways as well as gates, temporary fences, and hurdles.

Hedgerows in Britain: A Brief Overview

Roman Hedging

Ancient hedging practices were observed even in Roman times. The Roman occupation of Britain lasted from AD43 to AD410 during which time the Roman Empire established control over much of the island, leaving a significant impact on its economy, society, culture, governance, and infrastructure (Dark & Dark, 1997). Archaeobotanical evidence from Oxfordshire and Bar Hill in Cambridgeshire suggests the past existence of Roman systems of small fields bounded by hedgerows made of trees like hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), and bramble – something more akin to what we think of today when we imagine hedgerows (Rackham, 1998). The Roman author, Columella, who wrote specifically about the practice of farming, mentions hedges in his “Res Rustica” (On Agriculture). He discusses living and dead hedges as boundary markers and provides suggestions of plants appropriate for hedge-building and how to construct said hedgerows.

“The place which you intend to hedge should be banked around with two ditches three feet apart. It is quite enough to make them two feet deep. We let them remain empty over the winter while the seeds are being got ready to sow in them.” Res Rustica XI. iii. 3-5.

Anglo-Saxon to 19^th Century Britain

An Anglo-Saxon charter was a legal document originating from early medieval England, usually granting land (to both religious institutions and individuals), or recording privileges. These charters were used to establish ownership of property and rights and were issued in the names of Anglo-Saxon kings. The oldest surviving charters can be traced back to the 670s, and their usage became more widespread from the eighth century onward (British Academy, No Date). Anglo-Saxon charters reference hedges as linear rows of vegetation forming boundaries, and the permanence of hedges is evident from the numerous references to them in these charters.

For example, Anglo-Saxon charters provide evidence of manor estate hedgebanks in Devon, which are documented and still exist today as parish boundaries. The Anglo-Saxon word for enclosure was ‘haeg’ or ‘gehaeg,’ which, it is thought, is where the word ‘hedge’ originated. This suggests that hedges were recognized and utilized by the Anglo-Saxons for enclosure purposes (Rackham, 1998).

According to Rackham (1998), in Britain, mediaeval documents abound with references to hedges, mentioning their planting, maintenance, disputes, theft (?!), and use as temporary fencing. Early maps from the 16th and 17th centuries distinguish between hedges, fences, walls, and pales, indicating that most parishes in England had hedges at that time, many of which still exist today. The 18th and 19th centuries saw a significant increase in hedging during a period marked by the passing of successive laws enclosing land across England (land enclosures were a series of legislative acts and agreements that privatized common lands and consolidated small landholdings into larger ones). In this way, the use of hedges in land enclosures changed over time across England and the British Empire, from their use as field boundaries since Roman times, to their establishment as a way to mark the boundaries of newly enclosed land.

Hedgerows in Ireland: Medieval Period to 19th Century

Hence, we have a contextual framework for understanding the various systems that influenced hedgerow development in Ireland. Now let us look more specifically at what was happening on the island of Ireland from the medieval period onwards.

Medieval Brehon Laws

Landholding, and the enclosure of land, underwent significant change during the medieval period in Ireland. In the early mediaeval period, the Irish Brehon Laws make reference to enclosures and barriers based on permanent and temporary ditches (the Brehon Laws were an ancient legal system in Ireland, dating back to pre-Christian times).

Under the Brehon Laws, land was not owned outright but held collectively by kin-groups or tribes. These laws emphasized sustainable land use and regulated disputes over boundaries and usage rights. Enclosures were common and served practical purposes such as protecting livestock and defining settlement areas. They often consisted of earthen banks, ditches, or stone walls, depending on local resources and terrain (Gleeson, 2020).

The Feudal System, Tudor & Stuart Periods

Following the 12th-century Norman invasion, land ownership in medieval Ireland was characterized by the feudal system of landholding. During the Tudor period (1485 to 1603), land was enclosed by force in Ireland, and the plantation of Ireland took place, whereby Protestant English and Scottish settlers were landed predominantly Catholic Irish lands.  During these periods, hedgerows in Ireland were mainly established as boundaries between landholdings or fields. They functioned to delineate property and control livestock movement – and the movement of people. Hedge laying and management techniques were quite basic. During the Tudor and Stuart periods, hedgerow planting and management became more regulated. Laws were introduced to ensure proper maintenance of hedges to prevent intrusions to neighbouring lands and maintain agricultural order. There are records in the mid-17th century civil survey commenting specifically on “quick-sett” hedges in County Tipperary (Hall & Pilcher, 2001).

18th & 19th Century Ireland

The 18th and 19th centuries saw considerable expansion of hedgerows in Ireland. This was driven by the growth of large estates under the aforementioned Enclosure Acts, which led to the division of common lands into individual assets enclosed by hedges. Hedgerows became essential for land improvement, but also vital for controlling access to private property.

In 1817, the Irish Treasury was amalgamated into the British Treasury, and hence Ireland and England became a unified trading and monetary zone. This had profound impacts on farming practices, as mentioned, and on Irish food security. As a result of these changes in law and trade, throughout the 19th century, farmers began planting hedgerows in a more organized and uniform manner to create efficient agricultural fields, and there was a shift to a more diverse production mix (Inverardi-Ferri, 2020).

Hedgerows as Rebellion

In the 19th century, most noble landowners were absentees, and the Irish were forced to rent farms and became “tenants at will” (Downham, 2017). The relationship between landlords and tenants was characterised by imbalance and exploitation. The tenants, who were mostly small-scale farmers, paid rent to the landlords for the use of the land. However, the rents were frequently excessive, leaving the tenants in poverty and struggling to make a living. Additionally, the landlords had the power to evict tenants if they failed to pay rent or violated the terms of their lease. It was during the 17^th to the 19^th centuries (and especially so in the 19^th century) that hedgerows became a symbol of rebellion, with the idea of the hedge school. Indicated as a school hidden within a hedgerow where Catholic children could gain an education (which was outlawed), in reality the schools were likely in sheds and barns, but the idea of the hedge school entered public consciousness, as symbolic of both oppression and defiance.

In the next blog I will discuss agriculture, food, and hedgerows as related to the Irish famine of the mid-19th century.

References

• Dark, K.R. and Dark, P., 1997. The Landscape of Roman Britain. Sutton
• Downham, C. (2017) in Medieval Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks), pp. i-i.
• Gleeson, P., 2020. Early medieval kingdoms and territories: negotiating sovereignty in the Irish Sea region. In La Construcción De La Territorialidad En La Alta Edad Media, Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca. Universidad de Salamanca.
• Hall, V. and Pilcher, J., 2001. Flora Hibernica. Collins of Cork.
• Hollingsworth, L. and Collier, M., 2020. Ground flora of field boundary dry stone walls in the Burren, Ireland. British & Irish Botany, 2(4), pp.352-376.
• Inverardi-Ferri, C., 2020. Field systems and enclosure. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (2nd edn). Oxford: Elsevier, pp.91-96.
• O’Brien, W. and Comber, M., 2009. Local worlds: early settlement landscapes and upland farming in south-west Ireland. Collins Press.
• O’Connell, M., Molloy, K. and Jennings, E., 2020. Long-term human impact and environmental change in mid-western Ireland, with particular reference to Céide Fields–an overview. E&G Quaternary Science Journal, 69(1), pp.1-32.
• Rackham, O., 1998 (reprint 1986). The History of The Countryside. Pheonix Giant, London.

Cover image: wikicommons https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Inisheer-Dry_Stone_Walls.jpg