Rising Second Home Numbers in Rural Ireland: Distribution,Drivers and Implications

This article highlights a marked growth in the number of second homes in Ireland since the mid-1990s, which is concentrated in the rural and coastal parts of the peripheral Border, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest and West regions, together with parallel growth in the number of long-term vacant dwellings in these regions. These phenomena are linked to economic and population growth, the “laissez faire” nature of land use planning in rural Ireland, the generous fiscal treatment of housing, as well as tax incentives to encourage house building in economically marginal areas. The social and economic impacts of these dwelling on individual localities vary, depending on their number, usage patterns and the nature of the local economy and housing market. However, their environmental consequences are largely negative as is their impact on the national economy and on the economies of those regions where vacant dwellings are concentrated. Thus, our research questions the value of housing-led rural development, as they can result in excessive output of vacant and second homes and highlights the importance of adequately resourcing planning authorities if the worst excesses of rural housing overdevelopment are to be avoided.     

Troubadours in Debate: The Breviari d'Amor

Matfre Ermengaud's thirteenth-century Occitan encyclopedia, the Breviari d'Amor, concludes with a treatise on courtly love, the “Perilhos tractat d'amor de donas segon que han tractat li antic trobador en lors cansos.” In this treatise, the chief figures of courtly love—the lovers, ladies, troubadours, and maldizen, with Matfre as narrator and participant—dispute key tenets of love, quoting frequently from numerous troubadour lyrics in order to prove their arguments. In fact, the “Perilhos tractat” presents quotations of troubadour lyric in a disputative manner so as to highlight the troubadours as themselves in debate, although the Breviari purports to be structured by the overarching principle of love dictated by the visual mnemonic metaphor of the Tree of Love. This study examines the quotations of the troubadour lyrics here as dialectical, then, rather than as expressing and confirming a unitary vision of Natural Love. The “Perilhos tractat” is a debate not simply on love but also on the understanding and reception of the troubadours more broadly; that is, Matfre's dialectical use of troubadour lyric generates a broader debate about the meaning of the troubadours’ lyrics and their poetic legacy in the late thirteenth century.     

Palynological study of a Mi'kmaw shell midden,Northeast Nova Scotia,Canada

Before now, no palynological studies were made on shell midden deposits in Nova Scotia, despite a long history of archaeological research. A test study of samples taken from the shell midden at Maligomish (Indian Island) on the Northumberland Strait was conducted to determine if sufficient pollen, fern and moss spores, and other non-pollen palynomorphs (NPP's, including fungal remains, algal spores) could be recovered to allow interpretation of environmental conditions at the time of deposition. Several pollen processing methods were tested: sieving and swirling, chemical treatment with cold HCl, 5% KOH and brief exposure to 5% NH₄OH, and treatment with acetolysis solution. We recovered variable amounts of pollen, spores and NPP's from samples taken at 3–5 cm, 5–15 cm and 15–25 cm below surface. Abundant microcharcoal fragments prevented effective use of the swirling technique, but sufficient palynomorphs were recovered by chemical treatments to allow assessment of down-section changes in assemblages. Three radiocarbon ages from Mya arenaria and Crassostrea sp., and measurements of sediment grain size, moisture, organic and inorganic carbon, provide a framework for analysing palynological assemblage changes and context for interpreting differential palynomorph preservation. Despite some oxidation and microbial degradation of palynomorphs in the time interval (ca. 380–1600 cal yr BP), the midden assemblages correlate with pollen zones from marine and lake core sites within ca. 50 km of Maligomish. Shifts in abundances of algal spores, testate amoebae and aquatic plant pollen also indicate changes in depositional conditions during the time of midden use. The study provides the first reference for archaeologists attempting to use palynology for analysis of samples from Nova Scotian shell-bearing contexts.     

Regional Wage Rigidity: The European Union and United States Compared

In recent years it has been pointed out that regional unemployment disparities are much more entrenched across member states of the European Union (E.U.) than they are in the U.S. A 'conventional wisdom' has emerged to the effect that this difference is due in part to the greater degree of wage rigidity in E.U. regions. In this paper we explore this issue by estimating short run and long run real wage (in)flexibility for the regions in five core E.U. countries (Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) and for the U.S. states for the period 1976–1994. We find that real wage (in)flexibility varies across regions both in the E.U. and the U.S., but that, on average, regional wages are no less flexible in E.U. core regions than in U.S. states. The paper also examines some of the possible correlates ofregional variations in wage (in)flexibility.     

Magdalenian Children: Projectile Points,Portable Art and Playthings

Children, no doubt, were a significant component of Upper Palaeolithic societies. Despite this fact, however, serious identification and consideration of material culture which may have belonged to children – at least at one time during their use‐life – have not been undertaken. This situation extends to the best represented and most intensively studied of the European Palaeolithic techno‐complexes, the Magdalenian (c.21,000–14,000 cal BP), and consequently, we know very little about the children of this enigmatic people. As play, including object play, is a ‘true cultural universal’, we can be certain that Magdalenian children integrated objects into their games, with these playthings later incorporated into the archaeological record. Through examining ethnographic accounts of recent hunter‐gatherer children and reconsidering archaeological assemblages in light of these data, this paper suggests that Magdalenian playthings probably included full‐sized adult weapon tips and – more significantly – pieces of what archaeologists term ‘art mobilier’.     

‘The final decision is with the patient’: reproductive modernity and preferences for non-hormonal and non-biomedical contraceptives among postpartum middle class women in Yogyakarta,Indonesia

In Indonesia fertility has plateaued for more than a decade. Over the same period Indonesian women have increasingly accessed contraception via the private sector. Our qualitative inquiry into the contraceptive preferences of middle class women in urban Yogyakarta revealed limited interest in and intent to use biomedical and hormonal contraceptive methods. Women’s justifications for their contraceptive choices were complex and manifold: most had concerns about safety and the side effects associated with hormonal and biomedical contraceptives; others were ideologically opposed to fertility control. We conclude that contraceptive choices were an embodiment of women’s reproductive modernity, which in turn underpinned their reproductive agency. We also problematise the extent to which women’s contraceptive choices were comprehensively informed. Women’s reproductive modernity was shaped by their socioeconomic status; access to modern communication technologies; understandings of their right to health and contraceptive choice; pious yet pragmatic religious identities; and negotiations within their marital relationships.