Despite many discoveries and developments in the archaeology of the Mesolithic (both developer-and research-led) in Ireland in the past 30 years, representations remain somewhat influenced by the legacy of a few key sites excavated by a few people in the early days of the discipline. The 1946 and 1948 excavation of three 'shell middens' by Frank Mitchell in Rockmarshall, Co. Louth, on a moraine overlooking Dundalk Bay, has contributed to create and solidify the image of a coastal Later Mesolithic in Ireland, along with the shell-bearing sites of Sutton and Dalkey Island, Co. Dublin. In this paper we reappraise the original data available (archives, lithics analysis) and present the outcomes of a new campaign of archaeological and geoarchaeological survey aimed at reassessing the state of knowledge and archaeological potential of the site using contemporary methods. Results indicate that a substantial part of the shell layers excavated by the original excavator still survives in situ, and identify a discrete accumulation of shells that was previously unrecorded. More widely, the 'midden' category itself masks differences between shell-bearing layers and sites that question their mooted monumentality, and overlooks commonalities across shell-and non-shell-bearing sites in the last two millennia of the Mesolithic period.
This study explores the connection between changing environmental and climatic conditions and dynastic conflict in late medieval Ireland, with a particular focus on the Ui Dhomhnaill (O'Donnell) dynasty in the kingdom of Tir Chonaill. By drawing on a range of paleoclimatic and historical sources, the study examines how the onset of the Little Ice Age after 1300 may have contributed to reduced agricultural output in this marginal region, thus intensifying competition among its ruling elites and their expansive networks of clients and kin. Traditionally, studies of segmentary conflict amongst Gaelic elites have focused on the more immediate political and interpersonal drivers of such conflicts. This study examines how the two great late medieval periods of conflict that split the Ui Dhomhnaill coincided with the two major medieval cold phases of the Little Ice Age. By using the Ui Dhomhnaill as a case study, this study proposes that the politics of Late Medieval Ireland was deeply affected by changes in the natural world, upon which the agricultural systems that underpinned Gaelic political and social structures relied.
This is the first comprehensive overview of the cross-slabs of Clonmacnoise in more than a century. The collection comprises c. 720 monuments and fragments thereof dating to the period c. 700-1200. While they are relatively simple, requiring a modest amount of investment, their sheer number is remarkable. It was unusual in northwest Europe for an early medieval community to invest in stone memorials for a significant proportion of its dead, and for some of its royal benefactors, over such a long period. This collection can contribute significantly to our understanding of the evolving relationship between the living and the dead, and of concepts of memory, salvation and community. Building on existing records and substantial survey work, we present a detailed typology of the corpus and an analysis of its chronology. This indicates a high rate of production in the period c. 700-850, while the mid-ninth century into the tenth saw the production of the finest of Clonmacnoise's slabs, coinciding with the erection of its finest high crosses. Production continued after 1000, and probably after 1100, albeit at a reduced rate, but by 1200 Clonmacnoise had ceased to be the innovative centre of stone-carving of centuries past. We consider what these fluctuations may reveal about the character and identity of this community, and the waxing and waning of its fortunes, over the course of half a millennium.
Excavations of a portal tomb at Tirnony, Co. Derry/Londonderry in 2010 and 2011 revealed a surprisingly dynamic monument with evidence for Neolithic ritual. The excavation uncovered pre-tomb pits, a disturbed stone floor, and primary tomb deposits, containing Neolithic pottery, flint tools, struck quartz and possible hammer-stones. There were indications of the sequence of construction of the elements of the tomb, and of interruptions, of unquantified duration, in the tomb's development potentially revealing a dynamic, multi-phase monument. Radiocarbon dates obtained from excavated material place the commencement of activity at Tirnony in the 38th to 40th century BC. After initial Early Neolithic activity at Tirnony there were sporadic indications of further activity with radiocarbon dates from the interior of the tomb suggesting Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, Iron Age and Late Medieval reuse. Our findings add to a growing body of evidence for a phase of Early Neolithic activity pre-dating the rectangular house horizon of around 3700 BC, and confirm, as already suggested by the dating of Poulnabrone, Co. Clare, that portal tombs appear at an early stage of the Irish Neolithic.
Most scholars believe that Spenser’s View was written in 1596. This study indicates that it is a 1596 amalgamation of two elements: one drafted about 1589 when an optimistic Spenser portrayed the controversial actions of Lord Grey de Wilton in Ireland as a humanist enterprise; the other composed in 1596 when a panic-stricken Spenser, believing England’s control over Ireland to be in jeopardy, argued for the appointment of a new governor, backed by a fresh cohort of English Protestant officials, who would revive the abandoned policies of Grey. Each element of the text proposed actions that may have seemed extreme to educated people in England. However, it is shown how the successive denigration by Spenser’s interlocutors of the Gaelic, the Old English and the English Protestant elements of Ireland’s population, reflected opinions that were widespread among English settlers in Ireland. For them experience was the most reliable source of knowledge.
