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. Two New Dig Blogs From County Meath 12/07/2010
View Archaeology Digs 2010 in a larger map I'd like to draw people's attention to the blogs of two ongoing excavations from county Meath. One, taking place at Bective abbey is in its second year of blogging (it was featured in the Irish Times last year) , and the other, based on an excavation in Rossnaree in the Boyne Valley has only been online a matter of weeks. You can follow the, generally daily, updates for a fascinating insight into two ongoing research excavations. Sure you could even visit if you manage to drag yourself away from the internet for a few hours.. Louth Museum Webcast 26/04/2010
 The County Museum Dundalk, Co. Louth which has been mentioned on this blog before, is undertaking a series of streaming webcasts to a school in the US. the idea is to bring local studies to a wider audience. Its a great idea and will hopefully get a big listenership. The first broadcast was this afternoon (apologies for getting the post up a bit late) although I had difficulties logging onto it. I'll try again next time. For more info and a schedule of upcoming webcasts click "Read More" below Update: There were technical difficulties with the webcast today but a podcast will be posted tomorrow. Seandalaiocht on Twitter 21/04/2010
 Seandalaiocht is now a paid up member of the Twitterati with its own profile page and even a few followers. I've avoided Twitter for some time now, not really understanding what the point of it was, but I'm already seeing its addictive effects and I've only been on it for a few days. If you call yourself a twitter fiend and you'd like to get shorter versions of the random ramblings on this blog then start following me! I've also set up a twitter account for the events page which will update whenever I add something to the events calendar. You can sign up for it here. I've posted previously about the events page on the blog where you can find a calendar of archaeology related events going on in Ireland. To highlight the calendar and how useful it can be I've decided to try out a weekly post listing the events for that week.
You can add the calendar to your calendar application or your Google Calendar by using the links on the events page. EDIT 20/04/10 : An additional event has been added New RTE Archaeology Programme - Dig It! 09/04/2010
RTE are currently looking for entrants for a new archaeology programme involving fifth and sixth class students. There's a website to go with the show that gets applicants to play an interactive game where they identify a variety of archaeological objects that belong to a Bronze Age burial (I'm going to pretend I got them all first time..). Its really well done and actually informative!  I presume this is connected with the archaeology element of the school curriculum which recently saw the launch of a transition year resource pack to go along with the primary school one. You can play the game yourself on the programme's website but I'm afraid you can't enter unless you're in fifth or sixth class and are happy to 'don an archaeologist's hat'. There's no indication that I can find of how the programme will work or what format it will follow but I'm a big advocate of this kind of popularisation of archaeology. Getting kids, and by extension their tax-paying parents, interested and involved in archaeology is the best way to justify our largely publicly-funded research. The production company doesn't appear to have any background in historical/archaeological programming (judging by a brief glance at their website) and a lot of their recent stuff falls into the category of very light entertainment (e.g. 'Celebrity Jigs and Reels') but the website shows promise so I'll withhold judgement for now. EDIT: More info on how to apply here. Web 2.0 and Archaeology 28/01/2010
Last month I noticed a very flattering note on the Eachtra website about myself and this site. It invites comment from me but unfortunately I can't see anywhere to comment on their website so I decided I might just waffle away here as usual.  The title of the Eachtra post was "Brian Dolan + Web 2.0 = www.seandlaiocht.com". While being aware of the concept of Web 2.0 I had never previously thought about it in relation to myself or to archaeology.So what is Web 2.0? Well, its difficult to say and I'm not going into the details, that's what wikipedia is for, but basically its a way of describing a theoretical 'new version' of the internet. To me at least, its talking about an internet that isn't just consumed by everybody but can be easily created and changed without esoteric knowledge about Java, C++, html or any number of other scary abbreviations that are almost meaningless to the majority of the non Star Trek loving population of the planet (not that I have any problem with Star Trek). Essentially it's sites like YouTube, Facebook and and Flickr which allow you to interact with the web, create your own space and interact with other people online. Sites like Weebly (the service I use to publish this blog) and Google Apps allow web publication without ANY programming knowledge. Basically if you can use a word processor you can now have a presence on the net.  So what has Web 2.0 got to do with archaeology? Well, so much and at the same time so little. Its all about potential and a few sites (including Eachtra's with its excellent online journal , nominated for an Irish Web Award in 2009 btw) have begun to embrace it and change the way people interact with archaeological information, data and research. Web 2.0 has huge potential to change the way archaeology is viewed in Ireland. Dissemination has been one of the buzzwords in the discipline for the last five years but I have heard little talk about how the internet can transform how we disseminate to the public. The potential to reach out to the public, to inform and, excitingly, to interact is gigantic. Irish archaeology's response to the internet has been mixed. Some interesting and useful steps have been taken with online bibliographies, databases and mapping (e.g. Archaeology.ie, Excavations.ie, EMAP) but these are generally aimed at those already interested and they aren't exactly user friendly. Many commercial sites provide summaries of excavations, some make reports available and one even has a blog (not that it is much used). However there are plenty of very basic commercial sites out there and some of the archaeology pages on the internet I most use (Thadeus Breen's and Conor McDermott's sites) are still decidedly web 1.0.. Academia has done little more and the University webpages are nothing if not boring. Where are the academic blogs? The rich video and audio content or the electronic publications?  In reality it has been left to enthusiast sites such as Megalithomania and Mythical Ireland to 'give the people what they want'; including detailed maps of sites, basic information (sometimes not as accurate or up to date as it could be but where are the professionals providing info?), videos, photos and lots of other content. Hopefully I'm not coming over too preachy and I am aware that this site and its subdomains (smelt.seandalaiocht.com and charcoal.seandalaiocht.com) are by no means perfect but they do show some of what is possible with no programming knowledge, practically no money and a bit of time. Future plans for the site include a database of Irish iron sites based on my PhD research, an interactive map of the same and more articles, presentations, videos and photos. There is nothing stopping any other archaeologist starting a site and sharing a little of what they know and are interested in with the public who ultimately pay their wages (or, more likely these days, their dole!). The move to better websites in Irish archaeology is already noticeable with the trend for almost every INSTAR project to have a website (for a list see here) and the recently updated Discovery Programme pages. However we can do more. Sites like Scribd and Issuu make it free to publish online; Google and Bing's mapping services offer the potential to create accessible geospatial data at no cost; and Youtube and Vimeo do the same for the distribution of video and audio. Lectures and books are not the only way to tell people about archaeology. We don't need to make it more interesting, we all know its already fascinating, but it would do no harm to make it all a little bit easier for the man on the street. Call it benevolent self-interest: the more people get interested in archaeology and value it, the more chance they'll be happy to fund it. Viking House on the Northside of the Liffey 27/01/2010
 Dublin-type house reconstruction Photo: David Hawgood 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. View Viking House in a larger map Archaeological Scene Investigation 31/12/2009
 I just received a press release about a recent exhibition of archaeological material in the Dundalk County Museum. I haven't seen it myself unfortunately but if the very professional (and potentially copyright infringing) poster is anything to go by then a lot of creativity, thought and a bit of fun have gone into the exhibition. I love seeing archaeology presented in interesting ways like this, the public likes to be entertained and there is nothing wrong with giving them what they want, as long as the substance is there under the pleasant gloss of shiny graphics! Down with woolly jumper archaeology (but up with woolly jumpers in general, its bleedin' cold out!) and up with sexy, slick, and hopefully popular archaeology. Forget disseminating (snore), lets entertain! Archaeology for Transition Year Students 29/12/2009
 The School of Archaeology in UCD are looking for slave labour... ahem, I mean volunteers to take part in transition year work placements in 2010 within the School. In all seriousness this would be a fantastic opportunity for any aspiring archaeologist and one that wasn't available when I was a wee secondary school student with no idea what I wanted to do (not so different to how I am now really). Students will get to take part in active research projects and interact with lecturers and post-grads who will no doubt give a far better impression of academia than is really warranted! Spread the word to all and sundry. Click Read More for details or download the circular here. | What?A site about Irish archaeology: conferences; links; opinions;news; information and the internet.      CategoriesAll ArchivesJuly 2010    
     |
