Irish Archaeology
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Megalithic Ireland This web site features many megalithic, early christian and fortified sites all around Ireland. The High Cross section of this site can be viewed separately. |
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New Grange The Megalithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange was built about 3200 BC. The kidney shaped mound covers an area of over one acre and is surrounded by 97 kerbstones, some of which are richly decorated with megalithic art. The 19 metre long inner passage leads to a cruciform chamber with a corbelled roof. It is estimated that the construction of the Passage Tomb at Newgrange would have taken a work force of 300 at least 20 years. |
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Irish Archaeology Prehistoric Ireland. Little remains of Irish dwellings that predates the sixth century a.d. The abundance of wood and the difficulty of working stone with primitive tools undoubtedly accounts in part for this. In addition, the primitive farming practice of depleting the fields and then moving on to new ones made the laborious erection of a permanent stone dwelling unfeasible. Moreover, livestock constituted a major part of the wealth of the time, and the pasturing of flocks required considerable mobility, since the animals lived as foragers and were not, for the most part, fed grain from the laboriously worked fields. Furthermore, there were at that time no towns or even villages where artifacts might accumulate over a considerable period of time. At the most there were quasi-permanent encampments such as the royal sites of Cruachan and Emain Macha. |
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Ancient Ireland A Stone fort or ringfort is an early medieval farmstead enclosed by a roughly circular drystone wall or earthen bank. Sometimes more than one bank or wall is present, giving rise to the labels uni-vallate, bi-vallate and tri-vallate (denoting one bank or wall; two Banks or walls etc). Though the name includes the element “fort”, these dwelling-places were not designed for defence: rather the role of the bank or wall was to give shelter and security to the family, its livestock and their possessions. |
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Archaeology Ireland Removing monolith for palaeoecological investigations at Emlagh Bog, nr. Kells, Co. Meath. Left to right: Karen Molloy, Ciarán McCausland, Conor Newman, Maeve Moriarty (NUIG), Mark Hennessy (TCD), and Gerald Mills (UCD) (29.09.01, MO’C). |