Seandálaíocht - Irish for Archaeology

As a young undergraduate student (as opposed to a young PhD student), one of my first excavations was in Belderrig, Co. Mayo (I've been back many times since). Belderrig, just down the road from the famous Céide Fields is the home of Prof. Seamus Caulfield who, while retired, continues to entertain and educate UCD students who visit the excellent Belderrig Study Centre every year. 

A big part of every student's experience when they visit are Seamus's famous walks around the area; unfit city-slicker students chase after him up and down fields being told about landscapes, archaeology and folklore before ending up in the local pub where he usually proceeds to beat everyone at pool.

Anyway to get to the point, one of my favourite excursions is to Dun Briste at Downpatrick head to the east of Belderrig. This is a spectacular sea stack which appears to have become detached from the mainland some time in the early medieval or medieval periods and still has archaeology remaining on it. Seamus uses it as a brilliant illustration of the truth that can be found at the base of many stories preserved in local folklore, to paraphrase Seamus: the observation of folklore is often very accurate even if the explanation is not.

Anyway he often told us that he had been out on Dun Briste as part of a documentary for RTE, a frightening experience by all accounts, apparently the stack shakes with every wave that hits. I'd never expected to hear the documentary but have just found it in RTE's online archive. Have a listen to it here, its a fascinating account of a trip to a place that no one had set foot on for hundreds of years. I particularly like the fact that they found a quern stone sitting on the wall of one of the buildings as if left there before the natural bridge to the mainland collapsed.

Smelt 2010 went off practically without a hitch almost two weeks ago now. I've been prevented from posting about it due to a serious case of man-flu. Probably from sleeping Early Medieval style for the weekend of the smelt. 

However, one of my collaborators on the project Tom Birch has been far more industrious despite a sniffle of his own and has managed to get a report on the project published on one of the Naked Archaeology Podcasts. You can download the podcast here or listen to it through your browser here (skip forward to 25 minutes for the relevant section). 

As a bit of a teaser I have uploaded a few photos from the weekend. More will follow including some video and I will be updating the project website with a report on the smelt as soon as possible.

I found out about a newly discovered Viking house located behind the Four Courts in Dublin (Hammond Lane/Church Street) at the weekend through a friend working on the site but it has now trickled through to the national news. It was featured on Morning Ireland yesterday morning through a five minute interview with Margaret Gowen, complete with obligatory northside/southside comment at the end. You can listen to it on their podcast of the whole programme or just the interview below:

As a bonus, you can also see the report broadcast on the six-one news by clicking here or watch the whole programme on the RTE Player (skip to about 37 minutes in for the juicy bit). Also an Irish Times article here.