Inis Beag is a remote island off the coast of Connemara, Ireland, near the Aran Islands. It contains a small, isolated Irish-speakingCatholic community which cultural anthropologistJohn Cowan Messenger observed in the 1960s, leading to several longer treatises, including "Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland" and "Sex and Repression in an Irish Folk Community". During the period of his study between 1958 and 1966, Inis Beag supported a population of around 350, mostly living by subsistence farming and fishing. The name "Inis Beag" is a name made up by researchers to protect the privacy of the island's people. Its true identity is Inisheer.
Nativism
Messenger used his study to discuss the pitfalls and advantages of nativism as it applied to the folk people of the island. After seven centuries of English occupation, a movement of Irish patriots promoted what they saw as the essential elements of Irish identity, including language and religion. This led to many researchers, tourists, and authors holding up Inis Beag and the surrounding areas as examples of true Irish identity. According to Messenger, the island was the subject of a great many works he described as "romanticized," focusing on cultural forms that outsiders found attractive. These included "the traditional garb of the folk, their skill in rowing the famed canoe, called curach, the manner in which they manufacture soils and grow in them a variety of crops, and their Gaelic speech." Messenger was critical of the attitude of outsiders towards the purity of these customs. He found that 11 of the 111 adult males and 9 of the 85 adult females had given up the traditional local garb for imported styles from the mainland. This behaviour was especially prevalent among the younger women, with no adherents between the ages of 18 and 29. He also found that use of the localcurach had declined in recent decades, from 30 to 50 three-man crews fishing nearly all year in the early 1900s to nine crews working from the island in 1960. And despite the nativist opinion of the region's Gaelic, in his visit to the island, Messenger found that essentially all of the islanders older than eight spoke English proficiently, mixed English regularly into their speech, and even confessed to their priests in English. He attributed the rise in English to a practical view of language; many young people emigrate and would be disadvantaged by speaking only Gaelic.
Sexuality
Messenger's study of this community has often been cited by anthropologists and sexologists as an example of extreme sexual repression. He reported that Inis Beag had no formal sex education, and sexual intercourse was treated by both sexes and the local curate as a "duty" which must be "endured." Messenger proposed that the early replacement of physical affection with verbal affection—by the time a child can walk—led to institutionalized repression of sexual conduct. As he put it, "any forms of direct or indirect sexual expression—masturbation, mutual exploration of bodies, use of either standard or slang words relating to sex, and open urination and defecation—are punished severely by word and deed." Children were separated by gender in almost all activities. Islanders tended to bathe only the hands, face, and feet and developed an "obsessive fear" of nudity early in life. In some households, "dogs whipped for licking their genitals and soon to indulge in this behavior outside when unobserved." The repressive atmosphere, according to the researchers, led to high levels of masturbation, drinking, and alcohol-fueled fights. And, of course, repression of sexuality also manifested in intercourse. Elders of the island boasted that there was no premarital sex, although some young men did admit to it in rumor. When couples did have sex with each other, as reported to Messenger, the husband always initiated and the wife was commonly passive. Couples left their underclothes only partially removed and used only the male superior position, and when the man orgasmed, he fell asleep almost immediately. The people of the island behaved so strangely because informal and formal social control left them ignorant. Phenomena such as menstruation and menopause were regarded with profound misgivings because of extreme ignorance. Perplexed women asked Messenger's wife about the female cycle more than any other question about sex phenomena. Young women were often traumatized by menarche, and at least three older women had, in 1960, confined themselves entirely to bed to avoid a potential "madness" induced by menopause. Women sent their children out of the room when Messenger's wife would inquire about their pregnancies. Men were also grossly ignorant in regards to sex. Female orgasm was unknown to the men, not experienced by the women, or shunned and hidden. Messenger reported that one middle-aged bachelor who considered himself "wise in the ways of the outside world... described the violent bodily reactions of a girl to his fondling" and when Messenger explained, he "admitted not knowing that women also could achieve climax." Men of the island thought sexual intercourse would weaken them, and would abstain the night before an exhausting task. Despite all this, Messenger could not report a single family that was childless due to ignorance, a phenomenon in some other regions of Ireland. When Messenger inquired how newly-married couples learned how to copulate, he was told that "after marriage, nature takes its course."
