Irish Archaeology
Sharing Ireland’s amazing archaeology as well as interesting sites and finds from around the world.
Whit Sunday (or Whitsun) is an important Christian festival that celebrates the Pentecost. It normally falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter and in Ireland it was sometimes considered a ‘contrary day‘. As a result it was surrounded by a rich folklore tradition, much of it concerning ‘bad luck’. For example, people or animals born […]
More than €4m of European Union funds has been awarded to help safeguard heritage and coastal tourism sites in Wales and Ireland. Funded by the EU Ireland-Wales programme, the CHERISH project (Climate, Heritage and Environments of Reefs, Islands and Headlands) will support specialist organisations in Wales and Ireland to employ cutting-edge technologies to analyse coastal […]
Today, the 11th of November, is the feast of St. Martin of Tours. He was a particularly popular saint in Ireland and up until quite recently his feast (Martinmas) was surrounded by a number of superstitions and customs. These included a rather gruesome tradition, at least to modern eyes, which involved animal ‘sacrifice’ and blood […]
June 23rd, is St. John’s Eve, or as it is known in many parts of Ireland, Bonfire Night. It was traditionally marked by the construction of large fires throughout the countryside. These were lit at sundown and were the focal point of communal festivities. People gathered to dance and sing, while young men proved their […]
An archaeologist studying musical horns from Iron-Age Ireland has found that musical traditions, which were thought to be long dead, are still alive and well in south India. The realisation that modern Indian horns are almost identical to many iron-age European artefacts reveals a rich cultural link between the two regions 2,000 years ago, said PhD […]
A remarkable archaeological discovery in a Co. Clare cave has pushed back the date of human existence in Ireland by 2,500 years. This discovery re-writes Irish archaeology and adds an entirely new chapter to human colonisation of the island – moving Ireland’s story into a new era. Radiocarbon dating of a butchered brown bear bone, […]
This wonderful selection of photographs illustrates Ireland at the very start of the 20th century. Concentrated in Co. Galway, the images depict thatched cottages, shawl clad women, small farms and barefoot children. Indeed, the poverty shown in some of the photos is striking. All of the pictures are taken from the United States Library of Congress […]
The winners of this year’s Irish Wiki Loves Monuments photo competition have just been announced and as usual the standard is exceptionally high. Wiki Loves Monuments is an international photo contest, organised by Wikimedia, which aims to raise awareness of cultural monuments by creating a crowd-sourced bank of quality images that will be free to use for education. […]
These folklore accounts detail some of superstitions and festivities which once surrounded Halloween in Ireland. They are based on information supplied by schoolchildren to the Irish Folklore Commission in the late 1930s. Dressing up ‘On Hallowe’en night the boys dress up like old men. Some of them dress up like old hags. They put on […]
Archaeologists at the University of Southampton have found evidence of an ancient gold trade route between south-west Britain and Ireland. This new study suggests that people were trading gold between the two countries as far back as the early Bronze Age (2500 BC). The research, in collaboration with the University of Bristol, used a new […]