Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

[**  If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you think the post is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] On the 28th of September 1912 Sir Edward Carson became the first person to sign the Ulster Covenant . I’m writing this on the 29th of September 2012 in East Belfast. As the closest Saturday to the anniversary, Ulster’s Loyal Orders and their associated bands are out in force. Even here, sheltered from the Upper Newtownards Road, I can still hear the pounding drum beats and the high, tinny sound of the fife. In my back garden you can clearly hear the drone of the police helicopter high above, obscured somewhere in the broken cloud.  Personally, I don’t ‘do’ politics. These days, all I’m looking for in my elected representatives is to ensure that I can go on living a quiet, peaceful life and that we are never again dragged into the dark days of sectarian m...

[** If you think the post is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Preface: This is a slightly longer version of an article submitted to the Ulster Archaeology Society 's Newsletter, edited by Duncan Berryman ( @ArchaeologistD ). The on-line version is available to read: here . If you have an interest in the archaeology of Ulster, please consider joining the Society - it is a wonderful resource that deserves our support!  It doesn’t take me to tell the readers of this Newsletter that Billy Dunlop was for many years the energetic heart of the UAS. His long-term editorship of this Newsletter, while impressive, was but one of his achievements. He was involved in just about every aspect of UAS life, from committee work, to attending lectures and field-trips to, in 2000, holding the position of President of the Society. With his passing in September of last year, I lost a valued friend and a trusted mentor (read my tribute to Billy...

[**  you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you think the post is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] To the general public, archaeologists are associated with one fashion item: the fedora hat . Amongst ourselves, we frequently berate each other (and our younger selves) for such fashion faux pas as denim shorts, trowel holsters , and stripy jumpers … at least in the days before Health and Safety turned the profession into a day-glow sea of fluorescent high-viz vests. But there was once a simpler time … a happier time … a time when archaeology not only knew fashion … we knew STYLE! I was sent the accompanying photograph by Eoin C Bairéad (who is responsible for the regular ‘ News from the Net ’ feature in Archaeology Ireland ). The splendidly turned-out archaeologist is Liam S. Gógan (1879-1979). He joined the National Museum of Ireland in 1914, and from 1936 until his r...

Summer 2012. ISSN 0790-892x [** If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc . **] Sometimes it’s the little things that make you realise your age – and not always in a good way. The grey hair, the aching joints, your colleagues disbelief that ‘you’re how old?’ … these are definitely not great ways to be reminded of your advancing years. But there are other ways, too. Ways that make you proud to have been part of something; that allow you to say ‘yes I was there … and yes, I am that old!’ I would definitely put the arrival of the 100th issue of Archaeology Ireland into that latter category! While the inception of the magazine was (just) before my entry into archaeology, I have been a long-time reader, subscriber and occasional contributor to it. I remember the first time I saw it for sale – it was in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop in Galway (not the current fantastic temple to the printed word in Middle Street, but its much more humble ...