Irish Goats

Goats in Medieval Ireland

Goats were common in Early Medieval Ireland, but not as prized or important to the Irish as sheep were (1).  Their highest purpose was for dairy, and their milk was valued higher than that of sheep (2), probably because of their much greater capacity for milk production. Goat wethers may have been used to pull small loads or carts, and pack goats would likely have been useful in more mountainous terrain, but the majority of male kids were probably butchered every fall. Female goats were the key to dairy production, and a single buck could service many goat does; intact male goats have a distinct, unpleasant odor that prevents them from being popular animals to keep around the farmstead. The same odor often flavors buck meat, making it very unlikely that intact males were raised for food—wethering, or neutering, is an easy task with both sheep and goats.

Although the goats were less important to the Irish, their bones and horns appear at many excavation sites. Goats are very hardy and adaptable animals, and unlike sheep and cattle (which are grazers), goats are browsers. This means that they eat taller plants and vines, typically leaving the short grasses for the sheep while preferring brambles, vines, tall weeds and bark. In winter, if snow covers the ground, it is easier for a goat to find forage than for a sheep. In spring and summer, goats help suppress weed growth in pastures (by eating almost anything). In fall, goats will devour nuts and bark that the sheep do not eat, helping the goats fatten for winter at the same time that sheep are running out of food. Additionally, goats can tolerate far more tannins than can sheep; water with a high presence of oak leaves (black water, as was often found in Irish oak forests or bogs) can refresh a goat where it might poison a sheep. Goats can eat dry, dead leaves off of the forest floor and digest nutrients from twigs that would never feed a sheep or a horse.

One major downside to the goat, however, made it rather unsuited for the Irish climate. Goats developed in arid, even desert-like conditions. Their water needs are consequently small, but so likewise is their tolerance for moist surroundings. Goats require shelter from rain and are more prone to getting respiratory illnesses from wet pasture, while sheep tolerate much wetter conditions without problems. This flaw may explain some of the Irish dislike for keeping goats, compared with sheep, since Irish weather is frequently wet and goats may have needed greater care. Additionally, goats are far more likely to escape from confinement and get into gardens (especially one's neighbor's gardens!) and cause more damage than sheep in the process. The Irish laws document many fines and rules about livestock that damaged neighbor's property (3), and goats may have been the cause of more aggravation in legal contexts than sheep ever were.

Finally, goats were raised for their leather. Goat skin, along with sheep skin, makes excellent parchment—it being thin, already, and therefore easier to work into very fine sheets for book pages. After fleshing and dehairing, goat skin is typically white and absorbs dye easily. It is generally soft and stretchy, making thin, supple gloves or, as mentioned in an Irish gloss, very fine, slender shoes (4).

Sources:

1) Kelly. Early Irish Farming. p. 78.

2) Binchy. Corpus iuris hibernici. Book i, 307.3-11.

3) Kelly. Early Irish Farming. p. 134-143.

4) Binchy. Corpus iuris hibernici. Book iv, 1479.33.