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current archaeology|www.archaeology.co.uk
IRELAND Celtic Tiger archaeology
October 2010|
imagine also that these excavations were fiercely
regulated to control their quality. This sounds like
an archaeo-utopia: but for a short time it existed.
This was Irelands Celtic Tiger archaeology.
Current Archaeology last published a special
issue on Irish archaeology in September 1970 (CA
22). The sites reported on then by Andrew Selkirk
(Knowth, Newgrange, Navan Fort and Ballyglass)
remained state-of-the-art for the following 30
12
When the Celtic Tiger
During the Celtic Tiger economic boom, Ireland experienced a period ofprosperity which led to an unprecedented golden age for commercialarchaeology. In a four-part series, Brendon Wilkins examines the top sites,
finds and controversies that defined over a decade of discovery.
the golden years of commercialarchaeology in Ireland
Imagine a place where the term million-
aire archaeologist would not sound
ridiculous, and where young archae-
ology students could look forward to
excellent career prospects with salaries
equivalent to any other profession.
Imagine hundreds of excavations up and down
the country crying out for help, willing to pay
handsomely, even for inexperienced diggers;PHOTO:HeadlandArchaeology(Ireland)Ltd
ABOVE Frosty morning:looking south on the N9/N10 motorway projectat Russellstown, CountyCarlow.
When the Celtic Tiger
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war reconstruction boom happened long before
such restrictions were commonplace.
Weighing up the legacy of the Celtic Tiger eco-
nomic boom, it is clear that it was a golden age for
archaeologists; however, was it also a golden age
for archaeology? And, what insight does that giveus into how archaeology is practised in the UK?
Rumsfeldian archaeology
The majority of archaeologists in both Britain
and Ireland are employed to work on develop-
ment-led (commercial) projects. Embedding
archaeology in the planning process has been
called Rumsfeldian Archaeology, because it is
best explained by a somewhat mystifying speech
given by the former US Secretary of State for
Defence, Donald Rumsfeld:
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we dont know
We dont know.12 February 2002,
Department of Defence news briefing
In both Britain and Ireland, large-scale devel-
opments are preceded by an impact assessment
where archaeological remains are a material con-
sideration (the known knowns). In the case of
road schemes, these known sites are avoided, and
a desk-based study of maps, documents and other
non-invasive techniques is used to assess the land
adjacent to these sites: the known unknowns. If
these have archaeological potential, test-trencheswill be excavated to evaluate whether full excava-
tion should proceed.
In Ireland, these trenches are not just focused
around known areas of potential. The entire road
corridor is comprehensively tested, with a centre-
line trench running from start to finish, designed
to find the unknown unknowns; sites that would
otherwise fall through the net. This represents
a considerable investment in the front end of
archaeological works prior to construction, com-
pared to Britain where a much smaller percentage
of the road corridor is tested.
Archaeologists have never quite shared in soci-
etys wealth, no matter how successful the wider
economy. In Ireland, however, the archaeology
boom was fuelled by longer-term trends: gen-
erous European structural funding, attractive taxincentives and, crucially for archaeology, a com-
prehensive National Development Plan designed
to fix the countrys inadequate infrastructure.
With an annual budget of 1.5bn, the road
building programme in Ireland initiated some
of the largest infrastructure archaeology projects
undertaken anywhere in the world. Irish archae-
ology benefitted significantly from this unprec-
edented investment, underwritten by a cast-iron
legal framework designed to protect the historic
environment from development impact a situ-
ation that differed from Britain, where the post-
current archaeology|www.archaeology.co.uk
IRELAND Celtic Tiger archaeology
October 2010|14
ABOVE Todays news,tomorrows chip paper:whenever archaeologyis in the news in the UK,it is a positive story; in
contrast, during the CelticTiger, archaeology madeheadlines in Ireland for allthe wrong reasons.
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resourced; not so much preservation by record
as destruction in denial. But they may respond
by citing the law of diminishing returns, insisting
that the sampling approach is more cost-effective
and a better way of filtering out the irrelevant,
compared to the indiscriminate information-gathering of the Irish model. Is it precisely this
indiscriminate approach, however, that safe-
guards archaeology from commercial pressure?
Students of excavation theory will recognise an
echo in this debate that harks back to the foun-
dations of archaeology as a scientific discipline:
General Pitt-Rivers believed everything should be
recorded, irrespective of perceived significance,
because fresh problems in archaeologyare con-
stantly arising; while Flinders Petrie advocated a
discriminatory approach because the excavator
does not find anything he does not look for.But this does not explain how these different
methods were adopted in Britain and Ireland. For
that, we must look back to see how commercial
archaeology evolved in each country.
Ground Zero
Commercial archaeology in the UK is a legacy of
the Rescue Revolution a reaction to post-war
current archaeology|www.archaeology.co.uk
IRELAND Celtic Tiger archaeology
October 2010|16
Nowhere were these tactics more apparent than during the
excavations on the M3 as it passed through the Tara-Skryne valley in
Co. Meath. The Hill of Tara is a complex of earthworks dating from the
Neolithic to the early Medieval period, and according to tradition was
the seat of the High King of Ireland. The distance between the new
motorway and the exact site of the hill is 2.2 km (1.37 miles), and the
preferred route was selected from a number of different options, all of
which attempted to steer clear of known archaeological sites.
Nevertheless, in such a rich archaeological landscape it was inevitable
that entirely new sites would be unearthed, and when a highly significant
Iron Age enclosure was discovered at Lismullin, the excavation rekindled
debate in the media on the proposed route. The site was seized upon by
pressure groups opposed to development, and the motorway
was widely reported as being built through the hill of Tara. The
perception at home and abroad was that Ireland was riding
roughshod over its past, blatantly bulldozing one of its most iconic
monuments. Public opinion was polarised, and commercial field
archaeologists, engaged by the NRA, were caught in the crossfire.The fiercest critics of Celtic Tiger archaeology object on
principle. Condemning the development at all costs agenda, the
Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney criticised modern day Irelands
pursuit of the secular above the sacred. In an interview with
the BBC in March 2008, he said, If ever there was a place that
deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead generations
from pre-historic times up to historic times up to completely
recently it was Tara. His call to arms was echoed by Jonathan
LEFT The Hill of Tara ceremonial complex. The new motorwayis further away from the monument than the existing roadway,
shown at the bottom of the photo.
treated as potentially unique,
requiring 100% excavation
and preservation by record.
A legal framework under-
writes all decisions that
may potentially impact on
the archaeological heritage,and any proposed develop-
ment must be preceded by full
excavation of all sites and features.
But, digging larger quantities means larger
costs. If this is undertaken in the public interest,
one has to ask: does digging more equal value
for money? Who does it better, the British or
the Irish? Initially, it appears the British are the
losers, with excavations understaffed and under-
ABOVE This stoneartefact, broken duringmanufacture and thenreused probably as afishing weight, was foundadjacent to the BronzeAge trackway at Site 34,Newrath.
PHOTO:He
adlnadArchaeology(Ireland)Ltd
PHO
TO:MichaelFox/Knowth.c
om
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current archaeology|www.archaeology.co.uk
IRELAND Prehistoric wetland archaeology
November 2010|
On a misty morning 8,000 years
ago, two young women pushed
their way through the head-
high reeds of a tidal estuary, 6m
below the busy streets of what
is now modern Dublin. As they
stepped onto the shifting mud flats, their baskets,
wattle work and fishing ground came into view,
and they could see, even from this distance, that
it had been a bountiful evening.
They belonged to the period known as the
Mesolithic, and were the first people known to
36
From ancientwaterways
to modernhighways
As Irelands land-hungry Celtic Tiger economicboom targeted wetland landscapes oncethought too boggy for modern development,it became clear these sites had been home tovibrant prehistoric communities, settled alongwhat would have been ancient thoroughfares.Brendon Wilkins explains the evidence.
Irelandsprehistoricbeginnings
PHOTO:HeadlandArchaeologyLtd.
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www.archaeology.co.uk|current archaeology|Issue 248 37
microbacterial decay are slowed to a halt. In late
2004, Melanie McQuade, a Site Director for Mar-
garet Gowen and Co., excavated just such a site.
Mesolithic Fisher-Foragers
During routine archaeological monitoring
development works at North Wall Quay in Dub-
lins Docklands, McQuade and her team found
the remarkably preserved remains of seven Late
Mesolithic fish traps dating to between 6100 and
5700 BC. These are the earliest securely dated
have lived in Ireland, between 8000 and 4000 BC
(there is as yet no evidence for Palaeolithic occu-
pation in Ireland). The majority of artefacts were
organic and perishable, rarely surviving the life-
time of the people who made them. But it is not
just the durability of the artefacts or activities that
take place on a site that determines how much
is found. What survives is also a product of the
burial environment, which on some lucky occa-
sions can be exceptionally favourable to archaeo-
logical remains: either because it is waterlogged,
frozen, or so dry that the natural processes of
ABOVEPre-excavationshot of the multi-periodPrumplestown Lower site.The Early Bronze Age pitcircle is visible at centre.
IRELAND
Granny
Dublin
Prumplestown
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current archaeology|www.archaeology.co.uk
IRELAND Prehistoric wetland archaeology
November 2010|
fish traps in Ireland or the UK, and are also someof the earliest examples recorded in Europe. Wet
boggy sites adjacent to rivers known as estua-
rine and alluvial wetlands provide a wealth
of scientific information, but it is the record of
human presence in these landscapes that makes
them special. The fish trap remains illustrate the
value of this 70m stretch of the Liffey Estuary,
which was in use over almost three millennia of
Irish prehistory, as well as
the technological skill of
their makers and raise
several points concerningthe social implications of
trap fishing.
At this time in Ire-
land, the population was
heavily reliant on fish, due
to the fact that the limited
native fauna provided little
opportunity for hunting.
The importance of fishing is shown by the con-
centration of Mesolithic material recovered from
lakeside, riverine and coastal settings, and is also
highlighted by the high percentage of fish bonewithin assemblages of that period. In contrast to
Britain, the Irish Mesolithic was a fisher-forager
society, rather than one of hunter-gatherers.
The fishing ground
The fish traps were buried within estuarine silts,
where most of the remains were preserved in situ
at depths of 4m to 6m below sea level. They were
set to the south of a gravel shoreline about 30m
north of the existing quay wall, which repre-
sented either the northern bank of the prehistoric
channel of the Liffey, or the shore of a tidal islandwithin the estuary.
The fish traps and the pieces of stakes and wattle
scattered across the site were the remains of struc-
tures that operated on the principle of passive
fishing: fish in the incoming or outgoing tides
were caught in traps, and then retrieved at low
tide when the traps were accessible. The system
is separated into weirs of wattle work designed to
guide the fish, and traps
designed to catch them.
Most of the remains from
North Wall Quay wereparts of ebb weirs, which
caught fish that drifted
with the falling tide. Ebb
weirs are typically con-
structed of large wooden
fences (or stone walls) that
form a V-shape, with a
basket set at the junction
to trap the fish.
Four of the ebb weir pieces were Late Mesolithic
in date. In addition to the ebb weirs, Late Meso-
lithic dates were also obtained on a C-shaped fishtrap and a basket fragment. Evidence for a Middle
Neolithic fish trap was also discovered, which
comprised a beautifully preserved section of a
wattle weir (4.41m by 4.16m), found at the edge of
the shore where it had probably been washed up
by the tide. All the remains were so closely dated
that they could have been used by the same or
successive generations of fishermen.
The high level of preservation enabled detailed
analysis of the wood used in their construction.
The traps were made almost exclusively of hazel,
with small amounts of birch, ash and fruitwood
38
1
2
3
4
5cms
ABOVEA Late MesolithicC-shaped fish trap.
ABOVE RIGHTThissection of beautifullypreserved wattle weir waspart of a Neolithic fishtrap that had been left onthe shores edge, probablywashed up by the tide.
RIGHTEarrings and blueglass beads discovered at
Prumplestown.
BELOW The wedge-cutpointed end of a LateMesolithic fish trap.
PHOTO:MargaretGowenandCoLtd.
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www.archaeology.co.uk|current archaeology|Issue 248
also used. The selection of hazel was an obvious
one, since it is a pliable wood, ideal for use as
wattling and withies. It grows in dryland areas,
however, and is unlikely to have grown in the
estuarine environment of this site thus, the
wood must have been sourced elsewhere. Manyof the stakes from the Late Mesolithic fish traps
displayed worked ends, with most cut to a point
on the end.
These took the form of chisel (cut on one face),
wedge (two cut faces) and pencil (multiple cuts)
points. The visible tool marks were mostly flat,
although a few were concave, indicating the use
of convex, narrow bladed, smooth stone axes,
comparable to the narrower examples of such
recorded from Late Mesolithic sites.
Catch of the dayIn his seminal 1986 studyReading the Irish Land-
scape, Frank Mitchell argued that dense wood-
land covered Ireland during the Mesolithic,
perhaps explaining why the majority of finds
from this period come from coastal, alluvial and
estuarine sites. The restriction on inland move-
ment meant that people would have travelled
most easily along river valleys, and the fish traps
at North Wall Quay support this picture.
Reconstruction exercises have shown that har-
vesting the raw material and manufacturing aconical fish trap takes at least seven hours a con-
siderable investment in time and resources. While
parts of the traps such as baskets and wattle panels
could have been constructed off-site, they would
have to have been assembled and positioned
during low tide when the estuary was accessible
from the shore; thus, the people fishing at North
Wall Quay must have lived within easy reach of
the traps, so that they could harvest the fish and
carry out any repairs at low tide.
The traps could potentially have caught any of
the fish swimming into estuarine waters, namelyherring, whiting, bass, sole, trout, flounder, plaice
and mullet, as well as seasonal runs of salmon and
eel. Such a wide variety of fish may have facili-
tated year-round fishing; it could then be argued
that the construction of fish weirs may have laid
the foundation for a trend of sedentism and social
complexity. Ireland had become isolated from
Britain since it was originally settled around 8000
BC, developing its own distinctive settlement
pattern and material culture. Whether the drive
towards agriculture came from within the native
population, or without, there were dramatic
39
TOPThe Neolithichouse discovered duringair reconnaissance ofthe route for the N25Waterford Bypass at
Granny in Co. Kilkenny.
ABOVE Cobbles insidethe Neolithic house,representing a floorsurface, during excavation.
LEFT North-west wallof the house, showingpacking stones.
PHOTO:HeadlandArchaeologyLtd
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IRELAND Prehistoric wetland archaeology
November 2010|
changes happening beyond the Irish Mesolithic
world such as the wave of colonisation that was
sweeping into central Europe from the Balkans
and Western Asia. As our next site shows an
early Neolithic house from the River Suir valley
prehistoric waterways again came to the fore.
Hearth and home
In 2004 freelance archaeologist Joanne Hughes
had her suspicions, but it wasnt until she got
an excited call from NRA Project Archaeologist
James Eogan just landed from a reconnaissance
helicopter flight along the route of the N25
Waterford Bypass that she was convinced: the
faint square outline gradually appearing beneathher teams busy trowels was the first Neolithic
house discovered in Co. Kilkenny. It has since
turned out to be one of the best examples so far
unearthed in Ireland.
The Neolithic period in Ireland dates broadly
to between 4000 and 2500 BC, and is typified
by a change in stone technology, a reliance on
domesticates, and a transformation in social
attitudes. It was a significant departure from
the Mesolithic life-way. Stable isotopic analysis
of Neolithic human remains indicates a general
shift in this period from marine to a terrestrialdiet, dominated by meat, bread and dairy prod-
ucts. Settlements were much more permanent,
housing small farming communities dependent
on a narrow range of intensively managed food
sources.
This change is expressed at the early Neolithic
house site discovered at Granny, Co. Kilkenny, on
the N25 Waterford Bypass. Surrounded by tilled
fields and penned animals, it was an isolated
dwelling on a south-facing slope overlooking the
River Suir, measuring 6.5m by 7m, and dating to
between 3950 and 3715 BC. It had been built byconstructing a square foundation trench, into
which postholes had been cut at regular intervals
to hold a substantial timber frame supporting
the roof. High quality stone objects, including
chipped flakes and leaf-shaped arrowheads, were
deposited into some of these postholes, before
the posts were packed in and fastened together.
A lighter wall-cladding of split timber planks was
then added, with packing stones wedged against
them in the foundation trench.
Oak charcoal was found throughout the foun-
dation trench, suggesting that planks had been
40
ABOVE Site plan of features on bothsides of the River Lerr, PrumplestownLower and Woodlands West.
ABOVEReconstructionsof how the Neolithichouse at Granny wasconstructed, based onexcavation information.
PHOTOS:HeadlandArchaeologyLtd
Iron Age ring-
ditch cemetery
Wetlands area
with trackways
Neolithic
timber circle
Early Bronze
Age pit circle
Causewayed
Iron Age ring-
ditch
Neolithic
timber circle
Cow mandibles found here
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current archaeology|www.archaeology.co.uk
IRELAND Iron Age
December 2010|
but we cannot see them, he wrote. Thus we may
truly describe them as the invisible people.
Archaeologists throughout the world will rec
ognise this conundrum: does absence of evidence
equal evidence of absence? Are Iron Age people
invisible because Ireland was plunged into aDark Age of economic and cultural stagnation?
Or are Iron Age people invisible because our
excavation strategies have hitherto been ineffec
tive? As the Celtic Tiger boomed, archaeologists
were presented with a once in a lifetime oppor
tunity to finally find Pearses dead generations.
Changing times, changing fortunes
Perhaps it was his long years as a dairy farmer that
honed Gerry Mullinss acute archaeological sen
sitivity to changes in landscape. As the machinebucket exposed yet another ditch crossing the
road corridor, the excavation director was quick
to notice what a field walking team, desk study
and geophysical survey had failed to discover.
Employed by Cultural Resource Development
Services (CRDS Ltd) to undertake test excava
tions on the N6 Galway to East Balinasloe Road
Scheme, Mullins recognised that a series of four
concentric ditches cut into the flanks of Rahally
hill were the remnants of one of the largest hill
forts ever discovered in Ireland.
Irish hillforts date to the Late Bronze Age, butwere occupied for many centuries after, poten
tially shedding light on the nature of society in
Late Prehistoric Ireland. The number of known
hillforts in Ireland has increased dramatically
in recent years (from estimates of 40 in 1972 to
30
The National Monuments Act was enacted
in 1930, when the nascent state was grasping a
new identity, independent of its former colonialmaster. If the last 700 years could be dismissed
as enslavement to the English garrison, then
archaeology could be called upon to reveal a
Gaelic Ireland that was fully free. But, as archae
ology matured into a professional discipline
focussed on the scientific recovery of information
about the past, evidence for the native Celtic Ire
land, glorified in art and literature, was far from
forthcoming.
The Irish Iron Age is represented by a handful
of high profile royal sites, occasional deposits
of metalwork and an oral tradition of epic sagas.The late Barry Raftery argued in his seminal
1994 book,Pagan Celtic Ireland, that these scant
remains were the trappings of a small aristocratic
elite, shedding little light on how the majority of
the population had lived. These people existed
ABOVE Aerial view ofRahally, showing theprojected outline of the
hillfort ditches.
Dead generationsDebates concerning unRoman Britain should look across the Irish
Sea. Ireland was never brought under Roman control, which means
the country missed out on the gift of a coherent network of long
straight roads. The Gaelic for road is bothar, literally translated
as cowpath, a word that gives some insight into the ineffective
transport network that Ireland inherited at the beginning of
the Celtic Tiger boom. With no topdown reorganisation of the
landscape, Ireland maintained a dispersed rural population long
into the Early Medieval period. There were no major urban centres
until the Vikings arrived, and without the driving thrust of Roman
industrial pottery production, Irish sites are largely ceramicfree
from the later Prehistoric until the later Medieval periods. Without
the conventional bookmarks of 43 AD and 410 AD, archaeologists
have developed a different chronology, based on radiocarbon, that
better reflects the duration of Irish time periods, which retain the
same nomenclature as Britain.
Britain
8000BC 4000BC 2500BC 700BC 43BC AD410 AD1066
Ireland
AngloSaxon Medieval
Early Medieval Late Medieval AngloNormanMesolithic Neolithic BronzeAge Iron Age
AD400 AD850 1150
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current archaeology|www.archaeology.co.uk
IRELAND Iron Age
December 2010|
tool handles and many items of unknown func
tion, is one of the largest collections of woodenobjects ever to be archaeologically recovered from
a raised bog in Ireland, and it is believed to represent
a distinct Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age practice of
votive deposition.
The trackways and assemblage would surely be
more than enough to please any archaeologist;
but it would be a hidden gem, found buried in
the base of a large trackway, that would leave
the entire team absolutely amazed: part of a
wooden block wheel, now known to be the
earliest wheel in Ireland. Fragments of three
different wooden wheels, of varying form anddate, were found in total, and represent the
first instance in Ireland where archaeologists
have discovered wheels and trackways in direct
association. The presence of wheels at Eder
cloon is most curious, when taken in light of
the fact that none of the trackways from which
these artefacts were recovered were suited
to the use of wheeled vehicles. Additionally,
there is a broad chronological span between
the three wheel fragments from as early as 1206
BC through to 880 AD which points to a local
tradition of wheel manufacture over many centuries. This evidence combines to indicate that
these wheel fragments were likely to have been
deliberately placed within the trackways as part
of ritual activity, rather than lost as a result of use.
With such breathtaking finds and structures,Edercloon certainly brings the invisible people
a bit closer; but the homes and structures of
the builders are still missing. Even the artefacts
deposited at Edercloon were arguably selected for
symbolic reasons, and are not representative of
daytoday lives in a way that might be expected
at a similarly complex settlement site. If the elusive
Iron Age still cannot be found at one of the best pre
served sites ever excavated in Ireland, then perhaps
it is necessary to look at the most controversial.
Much ado about nothing?
The controversy surrounding the construction
of the M3 as it passed through the TaraSkryne
valley in Co. Meath was described in CA 247.
What is sometimes lost in the polarised debate
about the validity of the road are considerations
of the significance of the archaeology itself.
Taking the invisible people barometer used to
assess the other sites in this article, we might ask:
was the protest about Lismullin much ado about
nothing?
Between January and December 2007, excavations in advance of the DunshaughlinNavan
section of the M3 motorway revealed a large, post
built ceremonial enclosure, dating to the early Iron
Age (6th to 4th century BC), in the townland of
Lismullin, Co. Meath. The excavation was under
taken by ACS Ltd, fielding one of the largest profes
sional archaeology teams ever assembled in Ireland,
including six excavation directors, and managed by
Aiden OConnell. A committee of national experts
from the museum, curatorial and academic sector
were also drafted in to advise on the excavations.
Lismullin was a multiperiod site with evidence
34
If ever there was a place that deserved to be
preserved in the name of the dead generations
from prehistoric times up to historic times
up to completely recently it was Tara.
RIGHT Archaeologistscleaning the outer
enclosure stakeholes atLismullin in preparationfor preliminary drawing.
PHOTO:MaryDeevy
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and the brutal warfare that engulfed the country
during Irish Rebellion.
The End of the Road
In his recent book, Europe Between The Oceans(profiled in CA 229, 230, 231), Barry Cunliffe
assessed how the relatively minor peninsula of
Europe came to dominate world affairs. By the
15th century, Europe was a driving world force,
and the prehistoric origins for this success lay
in the dynamic mix of natural resources, strong
seafaring traditions and continual interaction
between different cultures. The movements and
migrations of people throughout Irish prehis
tory are complex and every bit as convoluted as
the political history of our modern age. As the
westernmost outpost of the European peninsula,Ireland was a rich, fertile ground for travellers
and traders from afar.
When the Celtic Tiger reached the end of the
road, it became clear that the enduring gift of this
neverbeforeseen scale of work has allowed us to
grasp Irelands historical complexity through
Richard OBrien and Ian Russell, 2004. The HibernoScandinavian site of Woodstown 6, County
Waterford. Recent Archaeological Discoveries on Road Schemes 2004, the National Roads
Authority Monograph No. 2, ISBN: 9780954595517.
Matthew Seaver, 2006. Through the mill: excavation of an Early Medieval settlement
at Raystown, County Meath, Settlement, Industry and Ritual, National Roads Authority
Monograph No. 3, ISBN 9780954595524
FURTHER READING !
Ca
ABOVE The only surviving upstanding wall with window of Carrickmines Castle, Co.Dublin, which was incorporated into a later postmedieval structure. This section of thecastle wall has been preserved in situ.BELOWA section of the revetted fosse at the site of Carrickmines Castle, Co. Dublin,preserved in situ under the roundabout of the current motorway interchange.
PHOTOS:RisnBartonMurray
all the site directors and companiesughout these articles. Special thanks toFrank Zac, Ronan Swan and all at the
who have given so generously of their timehe project from start to finish.