Its not long since Google Streetview went live in Ireland, and we had a quick look at a few of the archaeological sites it allows the more rain-averse archaeological enthusiasts to peruse, but Google shows no sign of stopping there. Besides adding significantly to their detailed satellite imagery of Ireland, they have also sent their Streetview trike to a number of major tourist attractions, including a fair few old ones, around Ireland to give us a trikes-eye view.
I haven't gone through the full list but a quick look at the Rock of Cashel and Dublin Castle shows the potential, particularly handy if you can't get to a particular site and you need to check architectural features, something about its landscape setting, or you just fancy a goo. Check after the break for the full list of Irish sites added to Streetview. Add Comment  Even in the Early Medieval period dentists were sadists. The Early Medieval Archaeology Project is a collaborative research initiative that has been running for a number of years based out of UCD and QUB and funded by the Heritage Council's superb, and endangered, INSTAR research grants. It has just announced the publication of its latest round of reports on settlements in Early Medieval Ireland as well as a revision of its intimidating Bibliography of Early Medieval Archaeology in Ireland. These are massively important pieces of work, particularly for researchers, and there are few parallels for this kind of work outside of Ireland. The project has been releasing reports on its work annually for the last couple of years and their work has involved the (figurative) surveying of pretty much every site ever excavated dating to the Early Medieval period in Ireland, particularly settlement sites. All of this will be drawn together in a forthcoming monograph to be published by the Royal Irish Academy. You can read more about it on the EMAP website, Facebook page and blog. This kind of synthetic and exhaustive consideration of the archaeological evidence from Ireland is one of the massively positive results of the Celtic Tiger boom and developer-funded archaeology. It, and other projects like it, have already begun, based on the abundance of sites excavated in the last two decades, to transform the way we understand periods like the Iron Age and Early Medieval period in Ireland. Hopefully the minuscule amount of money required to undertake more such research isn't withdrawn by the government in the coming years, thus squandering the massive amount of money, sweat and back-problems put into generating so much of the grey literature that makes this kind of research possible.  The National Museum of Ireland is looking for help to track down 'sister replicas' of the life-size casts of Irish High Crosses currently on display in Collin's Barracks, Dublin. The plaster-casts were created a century ago and shipped off around the world to showcase Irish culture and heritage. The Museum has launched a Facebook campaign to locate the current whereabouts of the crosses, starting with a copy of the Monasterboice High Cross sent to Sydney in 1904. Get in touch with the Museum through Facebook or Twitter if you can help them find any of the missing crosses! UPDATE: More info is now up on the Museum website. Experimentally Recreating Viking Heather Ale 24/09/2010
 Photo © Moore Group You may have already heard that the guys over at Moore Group are following up their great beer experiment with an attempt to brew some medieval ale, inspired by an early medieval Scandinavian recipe that doesn't make use of hops. The Heather Ale is called Beoir Lochlannach or the ale of the Scandinavians and is made primarily of Ling Heather or Fraoch Lochlannach in Irish.
I'll leave it to the guys to explain more on their own blog on the Moore Group website but in the meantime you can read a little more here, have a look at some more of the photos from the brew day on their photostream and you can download the nineteenth century article that inspired the experiment. You can also listen to Billy talking about the ale on Newstalk's Moncrieff show. Just click on the popout player, go to archive and the Moncrieff show for September 23rd. Billy is on the second part, about fifty minutes in. Unfortunately I can't make it to the tasting party but I wish them luck and I've no doubt there'll be a few nursing Viking scale hangovers the next day. New Irish Archaeology Blog: Headlines 21/09/2010
 Headland Archaeology have launched a new blog that only has a few posts at the moment but they're all on Irish Archaeology so far. Hopefully they'll post regularly, post lots of images and maybe even put up a few reports/publications. Its good to have another little island of Irish archaeology in the internet ocean.  This cutting from the Sunday Times (19th September) comes via the Heritage Crafts Association's Facebook page. Unfortunately the online version is behind a pay-wall here. You can click on the image for a bigger, more readable version of the clipping. To summarise though, the well known fantasy author got a knighthood and clearly needed a sword. So, he decided to make one himself, from scratch. He enlisted the help of Jake Keen, a man well known in the world of archaeometallurgy and managed to smelt enough iron blooms to create a sword. He then, brought the iron along to a blacksmith an helped him make it. The word jealous just doesn't seem adequate to describe my feelings about this. Hopefully i'll manage to smelt enough iron to do this myself someday. My initial attempt will need to be vastly improved before that happens though. The smelting and the sword are mentioned in this article too but I'd love to see more info on this story if anyone finds any other links!  The Sea Stallion, a reconstruction of the type of ship that would have been sheltered, and possibly have been made, in the longphort. Excavations in the last few weeks at Annagassan, Co. Louth have confirmed the (long suspected) existence of a Longphort on the site. A longphort is a viking stronghold, built beside water, that served as a base for trade, warfare and as an over-wintering spot for viking fleets. Other longphort sites in Ireland include the earliest phase of viking Dublin and Woodstown in Co. Wexford.
The site had been extensively surveyed prior to excavation but the discovery of a large fosse together with diagnostic finds including a lead weight, bronze pins and nails associated with viking ships constitute firm evidence for the identification of the site as a ninth century viking settlement. I'll be posting more information on the site (including some pictures hopefully) in the near future but for the time being you can have a look at the short report on the RTE news that went out this evening. Update: You can see some pictures of the excavation here.  The conserved Faddan More Psalter In the sumer of 2006 a spectacular find in a bog in Co. Tipperary Ireland caused a sensation. Against all odds an eight century vellum manuscript was found almost intact by the driver of a mechanical digger, Mr Eddie Fogarty. The book had been lost, or perhaps placed, in the bog over a millennia ago and represented the first book of this age ever to be found preserved in such a context anywhere in the world. Since the discovery the book, now named the Faddan More Psalter, has been conserved by the National Museum of Ireland and will go on display in the museum in 2011. While the book is, on its own, one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries in Europe in the last decade, it held one more spectacular secret. In the final stages of its conservation fragments of papyrus, a type of reed paper probably originating in Egypt, were found in its leather binding. Speculation about the connections between early Irish traditions of ascetic monasticism and those of the Coptic Church in Egypt has been around for many years and this discovery adds solid evidence for contact between the two regions in the eight century.  The psalter prior to conservation A documentary on the Faddan More Psalter and its conservation will air on RTE Television tonight at 10.15 p.m. Click Read More to view the press release.
Plagiarism in the Irish Times? 10/08/2010
 The first extract below comes from an article published this morning in the Irish Times but the paragraph that follows comes from a small website describing excavations at Lisnagun Ringfort, Co. Cork in the 1980s. Is it just me or is there a striking similarity? Irish Times, Aug 10th 2010 "Ring forts were built and occupied between circa AD 400 and circa AD 1200, in the Early Christian and Viking periods. Like stone cashels and some lakeland crannógs, they were the defended farmsteads of the native Irish Celts.These settlements were centres of mixed farming economy, and were largely self-sufficient in the production of tools, textiles and household goods. About 35,000 ring fort sites are currently identifiable in the Irish landscape – they are clearly marked on Ordnance Survey 6“ maps". http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0810/1224276470654.html Lios na gCon Website Ringforts were built and occupied between c.400 AD and c.1200 AD, in the Early Christian and Viking periods. Like stone cashels and some lake land crannogs, they were the defended farmsteads of the native Irish Celts. These settlements were centres of mixed farming economy, and were largely self-sufficient in the production of tools, textiles, and household goods. About 35,000 ringfort sites are identifiable in the Irish landscape today - they are clearly marked on Ordnance Survey 6" maps of which a small sample has been archeologically (sic) investigated. http://liosnagcon.com/ringfort/index.shtml The sad thing is, this kind of lazy journalism takes away from the point of the article, which is an important one about the apparent illegal destruction of archaeological monuments. Thanks to Terry O'Hagan, a colleague of mine in UCD whose well-honed plagiarism detector, developed over long years of first-year essay correction, picked this up. View Some Dublin Graveyards in a larger map A new blog has been launched inviting feedback on the future of St James's Graveyard, Dublin 8. The graveyard dates back to a little after the Norman invasion of Ireland in the twelfth century but went out of use in the twentieth century. The land is to be transferred to Dublin City Council and, laudably, they are consulting the wider public about how the space should be treated.  Wolfe Tone Square There are a number of old graveyards dotted around Dublin city which can easily be missed. Two better known ones include the Huguenot Cemetery off St Stephen's Green and the old graveyard beside Donnybrook Garda Station. These are little-used spaces, relatively inaccessible to the public, but they do preserve a certain solitude and dignity which can sometimes be lost when graveyards fall out of use. Wolf Tone Square, formerly the graveyard of St Mary's church on the corner of Jervis Street and Mary Street is a case in point. After the graveyard's decline in the twentieth century its gravestones were removed and piled, rather forlornly, against the wall at the south end, where they remain today apart from a fe set into the ground. Recent redevelopment of the graveyard as a public square has been less than successful. A bland, non-interactive design combining with its use as a drinking spot to make it a non-destination for Dubliners even during the day.  Gravestones piled at the end of the square Its difficult to know what to do with cemeteries when they go out of use, modern sensibilities cringe at the thought of 'walking on graves' although our ancestors had no such qualms, often holding markets and fairs on what was often a very convenient open space. I'm not sure what should be done with St James's graveyard but i hope the solution is neither as bland as Wolfe Tone Square nor as inaccessible as the Huguenot Cemetery. A blend of modern use with a respect for the past is usually the best approach. Graveyards are always fascinating and often very tranquil places, maybe preserving these two assets should be the main goal of the Council when planning for the future of St James's graveyard. | What?A site about Irish archaeology: conferences; links; opinions; news; information and the internet.      Click here for events calendar
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