'Excavating' The 1916 Rising: Archaeology And The Resistance Of Popular Narrative.

Author(s): Franc Myles

Year: 2020

Summary

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.

This contributor co-directed a fieldwork project in 2016 which ended in a rather odd archaeological excavation to recover a rifle dropped from the roof of City Hall over the course of the Easter Rising.

In the popular context of the centenary, the project blog (thearchaeologyof1916.wordpress.com) attracted a large audience, where the results of each week’s fieldwork were presented in a contextual essay. A wider social media presence encouraged greater popular engagement which included talks at libraries and schools and discussions on national radio, culminating in an over-subscribed public seminar.

One aim of the greater project was to employ archaeological perspectives on contemporary urban landscapes, to critique received historical narratives of the Rising. Four years after the euphoria of Easter 2016, and two years after the State’s successful High Court appeal on Moore Street, this is an opportunity to ask if the ‘Archaeology of 1916’ project has served any useful purpose.

Cite this Record

'Excavating' The 1916 Rising: Archaeology And The Resistance Of Popular Narrative.. Franc Myles. 2020 ( tDAR id: 457036)

Keywords

General
1916 amnesia Dublin

Geographic Keywords
Ireland

Temporal Keywords
1845-2019

Spatial Coverage

min long: -10.463; min lat: 51.446 ; max long: -6.013; max lat: 55.38 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 756