Ireland (Other Keyword)
1-25 (48 Records)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology on the Island of Ireland: New Perspectives" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Conflict characterises much of the history of early modern and modern Ireland, with sites associated with violence common on the landscape. The unresolved political legacies of these events, and by extension the potency of associated sites, translates into their differential treatment. Some locales are...
Becoming the ‘other’?: Exploring mimetic practice in the Ulster Plantation (2013)
Mimesis involves the interpretation and imitation of behaviour. Crucially, it is a strategy employed not only by the ‘colonised other’, but also by those in authority engaging with and endeavouring to understand the behaviour of those over whom they wielded power. Far from settling an unpopulated colonial wilderness, those few planters who made their way to Ulster in the early seventeenth century were thrust into a populated Gaelic world where their survival depended upon a process of...
Beyond Romanization and Colonialism: Roman Influences in Ireland (2016)
Currently, models of colonial theory are being broken down with better understandings of fluid frontiers and more complex systems of culture contact. These new frameworks offer greater insights into how groups interact and provide us with a substantial platform on which to discuss nuanced exchange networks. With recent renewed interest in exchange during the Late Iron Age in the British Isles, there has been greater advanced scholarship in our understanding of interactions between Rome and...
Castles and Colonialism: Exploring Meaning in Historic Irish Archaeology (2016)
Castles, architecture embedded with colonial power, can be understood as communicating display, power, prestige, corruption, oppression in the periods in which they were constructed and used, only to see the meanings shifted, reemphasized, manipulated, and recreated in the modern period. This paper examines the multiple temporal and conceptual values of medieval castles in north County Tipperary, Ireland, as objects of material culture whose meaning has shifted in significance from the period in...
Castles in Communities Anthropology Settlement Survey: Preliminary data from 2015/2016 field seasons at Ballintober, Ireland (2017)
An overview of project design and preliminary results from two field seasons of research aimed at expanding our understanding of settlement in later medieval Ireland. The field school program run by Foothill College at Ballintober Castle in Co. Roscommon has made remarkable progress 1) identifying possible phases of Anglo-Norman and subsequent Gaelic Irish castle construction and occupation, 2) utilizing different geophysical techniques to find a Deserted Village associated with the castle,...
Castles in Communities Ireland Field Program (2018)
[HOW CAN I REQUEST AFTER HOURS POSTER SESSION -- MYSELF ALONG WITH 2 or 3 other posters from this Ireland project would like to join] The 200 pound pig slowly turns on the spit for hours while a few feet away students from California trowel through excavations at Ballintober Castle. A marquee is set up as villagers busily prepare for Heritage Weekend, which they pushed up to mid July to accommodate the field school and 70 people staying in the village. In the next few days there will be story...
Catholic Burial as Native Resistance in Post-Dissolution Ireland (2015)
The Dominican friary in Trim, County Meath, Ireland, was founded in AD 1263 by Geoffrey de Geneville, Lord of Trim. An important religious center, the Black Friary was used for burial during the late Middle Ages both by the Dominican friars and by lay individuals living around the town. In 1540, as part of the dissolution of the monasteries, the commissioners of King Henry VIII suppressed the friary and sold its lands, buildings, and goods. However, although the site no longer possessed formal...
Celtic Crosses and Quetzal Masks: On the (Re)production of the Archaeological Record (2017)
In an era of globalization and mass production, archaeological objects and images are not immune to being transformed into commodities and sold for profit. This (re)production of the past can profoundly influence the ways that consumers understand the history of particular times and places—often erasing the experiences of marginality and resilience that archaeologists work so hard to recover. This paper examines two distinct cases in which historical images (and periods) are being transformed...
"Children in a ragged state": Seeking a bioarchaeological narrative of childhood in Ireland during the Great Famine (1845–52) (2016)
More than half of all victims of the Great Famine in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 were children, but despite this fact relatively little attention, amongst a vast body of famine research undertaken to date, has been undertaken to explore their experiences and what realities they endured during this period. Following the archaeological discovery and bioarchaeological study of a large famine-period mass burial ground adjacent to the former workhouse in Kilkenny City, the physical experience of this...
The colonial landscapes of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, c.1602-1643 (2013)
This an interdisciplinary (history/archaeology) study of the colonial landscapes created by Richard Boyle (1566-1643), the 1st Earl of Cork, in 17th -century Munster, Ireland. Viewed by his contemporaries and by subsequent scholars as an exemplary English planter who, above all his contemporaries, best realised the aims of the Munster Plantation by forging a model English Protestant ‘commonwealth’ on his estates, this study will examine - and question - the extent of his achievement. Utilising...
Control, Accommodation and Allegiance in the Munster Plantation: a New Perspective on Colonialism in the Munster Estates of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, 1602-1643 (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology on the Island of Ireland: New Perspectives" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Right up until his death in 1643, Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork, could rely upon an ethnically diverse native tenantry and militia to consolidate and defend his interests. At least a quarter of the tenants contributing to his two well-equipped and trained militias were of native origin. Throughout the 1630s...
Culture, Class & Consumption: Ireland in the Early Modern Atlantic World (2018)
Archaeological investigations throughout the northern Irish port town of Carrickfergus have generated a vast collection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century material culture, reflecting the role of the town as an entrepôt of early-modern Atlantic goods. Carrickfergus was a heterogeneous settlement, with a mixture of Gaelic Irish, Scots, and English identities amongst a network of merchants, sailors, soldiers, and tradesmen. The material culture is illustrative of the changes in attitudes...
The Dynamics of Small Things Remembered: Giving Voice to A Silenced Past (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "“Historical Archaeology with Canon on the Side, Please”: In Honor of Mary C. Beaudry (1950-2020)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Mary Beaudry’s impact on archaeology is immense and reaches all corners of the discipline. More than anything, it was her commitment to the individual and their ability to make meaningful choices throughout the course of everyday life. Ultimately, she created a dynamic landscape...
The evolution from fortified to country house in Ireland (2013)
The paper summarizes the new architecture in three areas of Ireland during the early seventeenth century: the Ulster plantation, the Midland plantations, and the large areas outside of the plantations. A new but a distinct architecture of semi-fortified plantation houses emerged in this period. These houses sometimes had mannerist classical details of entrances, but usually no overall classical design. However, increasingly, the major plantation houses were set in impressive symmetrical...
Experimental Archaeology and Investigating Houses in the Past (2018)
Experimental archaeology can be defined as the reconstruction of past buildings, technologies, objects and environmental contexts, their testing and use, so as to gain a better understanding of the role of material culture in people’s lives in the past. We explore ideas of craft, materiality, knowledge, skills and the use of different materials to practically test how people made, used and discarded things in the past. This paper will investigate how early medieval houses in Europe can be...
Folklore and Fairy Forts: Re-Use of Archaeological Landscapes in Ireland (2016)
The re-use of sites and landscapes in both ancient and contemporary contexts is widely recognized in archaeology. In Ireland, many sites show evidence of use throughout prehistory and into the historical era, although the meaning of these places changed substantially over time and continues to evolve today. This paper will examine historical and contemporary folklore surrounding archaeological sites in Ireland, focusing largely on the nineteenth and twentieth century understanding of raths,...
Forget Me Not: Charles Orser’s Unearthing of Hidden Ireland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Transformation of Historical Archaeology: Papers in Honor of Charles E Orser, Jr" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 1994, Charles Orser began a multi-year excavation program in County Roscommon, Ireland, that would help to legitimize the nascent field of post-medieval (modern-world) archaeology in the country. In a place rich with passage tombs and golden hordes, a focus on post-1700 deposits was unusual enough,...
From Buried Floor to Missing Roof: Using Archaeology to understand the Architecture of an Late 19th/Early 20th Century Vernacular Irish Cabin. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Meaning in Material Culture" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Often less studied than more standardized forms, the vernacular architecture of Ireland’s rural poor provides valuable information to understanding rural life in the periods following the Great Famine. The author conducted an architectural study during a five-week archaeological investigation of a late 19th/early 20th century cabin, under the direction of...
Going beyond science: the tangible and intangible contributions of community Archaeology (2017)
It is widely recognized that archaeologists have the potential to contribute in meaningful ways to local communities. However, it is also important to consider the tangible and intangible nature of these contributions given the diverse and, sometimes, competing interests among various stakeholder groups along with the seasonal nature of academic archaeological and heritage research. Multi-year collaborative projects often facilitate greater general awareness of local heritage, open new...
Hidden Histories of an Island Village: an Ethnoarchaeological Exploration of Westquarter Village, Inishbofin (2013)
While historians have a broad understanding that residential practices changed through time within 19-20th century Irish coastal villages, little research has explored the extent migration and residential continuity shape village history, let alone the underlying reasons for changes. Focusing on the small village of Westquarter, Inishbofin, Co. Galway, Ireland, this paper explores the social and residential history from around 1800 through present day. Centered on the dynamic intergenerational...
Holy Wells across the Longue Durée (2016)
Sacred springs and holy wells in northwest European prehistory evidence multi-period veneration, yet are archaeologically-resistant sites. This paper assesses evidence for votive deposition at sacred watery sites with a focus on the Iron Age to Christian transition in Ireland. While recent scholarship deconstructing “the Celts” has also dismissed contemporary holy well practices as invented traditions or as Roman introductions, ongoing veneration at nearly 1000 Irish well sites is part of an old...
Identifying Foodways In Early Modern Ireland Using A Multi-isotope Approach (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "FoodCult: Food, Culture and Identity in Ireland, c.1550-1650", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper presents preliminary results of isotopic analysis of early modern individuals excavated from archaeological sites in Ireland, generated as part of the FoodCult project. A variety of populations from across Ireland are represented, allowing for discussions regarding the social and cultural meaning of food...
Interpreting Ecclesiastical Mobility: A pXRF Study of Medieval Gravestones in Ireland (2015)
Western Ireland’s early medieval (700-1200 AD) landscape—dotted with stone cemeteries and structures—provides an ideal setting for studying ecclesiastical lifeways through methods of raw materials characterization. Archaeological analyses and oral history suggest that people living in small ecclesiastical communities between the 6th and the 12th centuries exchanged and transported gravestones. While traditional archaeological analysis of the shape and stylistic design of gravestones from five...
Ireland in the Iron Age: Interaction, Identity, and Ritual (2018)
The relationship between Ireland and both Britain and continental Europe has often, both explicitly and implicitly, cast Ireland as either subsumed under the "British Isles" or as being "peripheral" to cultural life there and on the Continent. This terminology simultaneously ignores the unique aspects of Irish social and cultural life while suggesting that any study of culture there is not relevant to a broader understanding of the human experience. However, the archaeological record suggests a...
Island, Mainland, and the Space Between: The Role of Geography in Shaping Community Historical Trajectories of 19th and 20th Century Ireland (2017)
This study looks at the relationship between geographical ‘islandness’ and community formation in Western Ireland. In this paper we investigate to what degree geography shapes the social, economic and political experiences of a community. Furthermore, we examine to what extent these elements of community composition strengthen or diminish their influence on each other. We compare the 19th and 20th century island communities of Inishbofin and Inishark, Co. Galway against the complementary...