Seandálaíocht - Irish for Archaeology

The first episode of Secrets of the Stones: Decoding Ireland's Lost Past was broadcast on Easter Monday and seems to be another in a line of very welcome heritage/archaeological oriented mini-series being produced by RTE (another recent one being Blood of the Irish).

The programme was impressively produced with none of the usual celtic mysticism, new-age spiritualism or shoddy camerawork associated with archaeology-related programmes on RTE. The graphics, camerawork and general quality of the show's production was on a par with what you might expect from a BBC show and probably better than most Discovery Channel/History Channel fare.

In terms of the archaeological quality of the content it was patchy to say the least. An uninformed viewer might easily believe that Ireland's first inhabitants built passage tombs and went to parish church every Sunday and the lack of a Mesolithic reminds us of an archaeological perspective that should have dissappeared in the seventies. The rolling out of Mike Baillies comet hypothesis is understandable in the light of its obvious entertainment value but perhaps a little more of a balanced view could have been given.

There are plenty of other quibbles any archaeologist could have with the programmes content but I for one salute it as a key element in getting archaeology to the public. Despite its flaws it was interesting enough to keep a number of non-archaeological friends of mine watching for longer than five minutes and anything that gets the general public interested is, in my view, a very very good thing. 

Episode 2 of Secrets of the Stones, which will look at the arrival of Christianity, will air on Monday 4th May at 6.30pm on RTE One. Click here to download a pdf leaflet about the programme.

We have recently launched the TAT t-shirt shop here. Having been to many conferences where you could take away a little memory to wear on site, to the pub or wherever else you enjoy being gently derided for your geeky fashion sense, we thought it might be nice to do the same for TAT.

We thought about having the t-shirts on sale during the conference but we simply didn't have the money to buy in a load of them on the off-chance they would sell. The alternative was an excellent site called Zazzle.com that allows participants (and anyone else) who want a t-shirt before or after the conference to order theirs in whatever size, shape or colour they prefer.

The organisers and volunteers will be sporting their own snazzy designs during the three-day event. We'll see how often they're worn after that...

The Royal Irish Academy is currently compiling an electoral role for the purposes of electing a new, re-invigorated Committee for Archaeology. They intend to have a number of representatives on the committee representing this broad electorate. All you have to do is fill out this form giving a link to a CV or writing a brief CV on the form.

Nominations for the representative positions will be members of the electoral register so if you're interested in standing or in having a say make sure you sign up. Click here for more info.

This is a photo of Park Cave, White Park Bay, Co. Antrim taken by photographer Andy McInroy. The photo was taken as part of a project that is re-visiting some of the many caves along the Antrim coast photographed a century ago by Victorian pioneers.

The photographs are not only beautiful, they are also a reminder of the key role they have played in the history of archaeology and the important cultural resource that they still are.

The exploration of caves all over the world has brought about huge advances in our understanding of the prehistory of the human race; their occasional preservation of long stratigraphical sequences and their use in multiple periods have made them important resources for archaeologists from France to the Philipines. This is less true in Ireland although archaeologists such as Marion Dowd have recently begun to tease out the complex and incredibly interesting stories of our excavated cave sites.

There is huge potential in Ireland, a country largely made up of soluble limestone, for further work in caves and hopefully the next few years will continue to see increasing interest in these spectacular, mysterious, sometimes dangerous, and often inaccessible parts of our landscape.

The TAT programme has now been confirmed and launched. Preparations are well under way with the next phase being selection of chairs for the various sessions.

We are also working on putting together a decent social schedule to make sure people learn about more than just material culture when they come to Dublin!

Download the programme here and remember to log on to the TAT website and register asap.

My review of the 2009 World of Iron Conference, written in haste and at short notice has just appeared in HMS News:

Dolan, B. 2009 World of Iron Conference 2009 HMS News 71, 5-6.