Ignored by Some, Remembered by All: Challenges of Disaster Archaeology of the Great Famine

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeologists have explored disasters throughout the discipline’s history, and these calamitous events range from volcanic eruptions, floods, earthquakes and more. The material footprint of the Irish famine presents a challenge to archaeologists investigating disasters. Further, famine-era sites are from the nineteenth century, a time not protected under Irish laws. Those most impacted by the famine have been left voiceless due to the marginalization of the famine sites. Employing archaeological and ethnographic methods, this project aims to understand the disaster known as the Great Famine in Ireland. Through a case study and comparisons of Westquarter village on Inishbofin County Galway, an island five miles off the western coast of Ireland, I consider how archaeologists regard the Famine and the various factors which impact archaeological investigations on the disaster. I conceptualize how to study a disaster that has been largely ignored by archaeologists and official heritage bodies. Further, this research investigates how to study a time and an event when the sites are at risk. This work reframes how archaeologists can understand disasters and how to work within a system that ignores the disaster for political reasons.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25688