Includes bibliographical references (pages 194-215) and index.

List of illustrations -- List of abbreviations -- Notes on contributors -- Preface and acknowledegements -- Introduction / Margaret Murphy and Matthew Stout -- The evolution of cattle and of cattle farming systems : the genetic evidence / Patrick Cunningham -- The early medieval farm / Matthew Stout -- The Cistercian grange : a medieval farming system / Geraldine Stout -- Manor centres, settlement and agricultural systems in medieval Ireland, 1250-1350 / Margaret Murphy -- The origins of the creaght : farming system or social unit? / Katharine Simms -- The changing structure of Irish agriculture in the seventeenth century / Raymond Gillespie -- Collon, Co. Louth : the landscape legacy of an eighteenth-century estate / Matthew Stout, Michael Carey, Jim Collins, L. M. Cullen, Tim Gleeson, Tony Leavy and Eileen Murphy -- Farming and settlement : some dynamic relationships / Brendan Riordan.

This volume explores the relationship between Irish settlement and agricultural practice from the Neolithic to the 18th century. The types of farming that took place in any particular period of Irish history had a powerful impact on the development of settlement. Interdisciplinary studies in this volume address key periods to illustrate that process: from the spread of Neolithic pastoralism, the very basis of farming on this island; through the medieval focus on tillage, which gave rise to manorial villages and granges; to the 18th-century agricultural revolution and the impact that had on urban and rural landscapes.