By CIANNA DEVITT
Published in Environment and History, January 2026.
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Abstract

This article examines a case brought before the Belfast Spring Assizes in 1886 and again in 1887, in which three coastal smallholders from Ballycastle, County Antrim, were prosecuted for theft of seaweed from shores claimed by a local landlord. Drawing upon a variety of documents produced from the trial, this article examines how Irish legal institutions managed the indeterminate foreshore environment during a period of considerable land law reform. Central to this investigation is the consideration of how evidentiary hierarchies, upheld in court proceedings and enshrined in public judgements, informed public challenges to coastal enclosure. Written evidence bases (maps, leases, rent books) were privileged over oral testimony, with the effect of reinforcing absolutist, totalising visions of property ownership. Yet, through the hearing of oral testimonies, the courtroom retained a crucial function as a theatre for airing popular counterclaims. These depositions complicated the prosecution’s vision of coastal ownership, articulating the foreshore as a terraqueous environment governed by local custom and informal systems of exchange that were underpinned by understandings of reciprocity and common rights rather than exclusive title.