Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Ann Lynch. Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dublin, 2010. xvi + 245pp. Colour and black & white illustrations and plates throughout. ISBN 978-1-4064-2532-1. €30. [** you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.   If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc.**] The publication of Tintern Abbey, Co. Wexford: Cistercians and Colcloughs. Excavations 1982-2007 is the fifth instalment in the Department of Heritage and Local Government’s internationally peer reviewed Archaeological Monograph Series. The abbey was founded in 1200 by William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, and quickly became one of the most important Cistercian foundations on the island. After its dissolution the abbey, and the majority of its lands, passed to Sir Anthony Colclough (pronounced Cokelee). The site remained in the family until 1959, and was vested in the Commissioners ...

Margaret Murphy & Michael Potterton. Four Courts Press & The Discovery Programme, Dublin, 2010. 598pp. Colour and black & white illustrations and plates throughout. ISBN 978-1-84682-266-7. €50 or €45 from FCP website . [**If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc.**] The publicity literature surrounding The Dublin Region in the Middle Ages: Settlement, Land-use and Economy describes it as ‘the first major publication of the Discovery Programme’s Medieval Rural settlement Project’ … and major it is in every sense. The first thing that struck myself and others when we saw it at the Discovery Programme book stall at the recent INSTAR conference was its sheer physical presence. There were several jokes about not putting your back out trying to lift it and not letting it fall on you etc . While such comments are to be expected, its physical mass and volume are the smallest things about it. In the Preface, MRSP Pr...

Richard F. Gillespie & Agnes Kerrigan. National Roads Authority, Dublin, 2010. NRA Scheme Monographs 6. xii + 412pp. Colour and black & white illustrations and plates throughout. ISBN 978-0-9564180-1-2. ISSN 2009-0471. € 25. [**If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc.**] Since the arrival of the NRA Scheme Monographs in 2007 with Monumental Beginnings: the archaeology of the N4 Sligo Inner Relief Road the series has established itself as a benchmark in high quality academic publishing. Of Troughs and Tuyères: The archaeology of the N5 Charlestown Bypass is the sixth instalment in the series and continues this high standard of excavation reporting and dissemination. In the preface, R. M. Cleary contrasts the traditional focus of archaeological excavation on monuments with the opportunity to examine the, apparently, mundane landscapes revealed through large-scale, linear road projects. Indeed, the route was spec...

[** you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc.**] The Helen Roe Lecture Theatre at the Dublin headquarters of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland was the setting for the presentation of nine papers detailing the advances in our knowledge brought about by the INSTAR project. The one-day conference was jointly hosted by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and The Heritage Council . Ian Doyle, Head of Conservation at The Heritage Council, chaired the first session and gave the delegates a warm welcome and provided some remarks concerning the means by which the INSTAR Programme was founded. The first lecture of the morning was Making Christian Landscapes presented by Dr. Tomás Ó Carragáin (UCC). In a theme that would emerge as recurrent motif of the conference, he emphasised the collaborative and interdisciplinar...