Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the secure button at the right. If you think it is interesting or useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. To help keep the site in operation, please use the amazon search portal at the right - each purchase earns a small amount of advertising revenue **] Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI > The weekend of the 25th to 27th October 2013 saw an influx of visitors to Sligo town. Some were there for the Sligo Live Music Festival ; some had travelled long distances to be part of the Bram Stoker Weekend . However, a select band had come for the Archaeology of Gatherings Conference . The year 2013 had been designated the year of ‘ The Gathering ’ – an initiative to draw tourists to the country. Thus, the organisers had conceived of this conference to draw archaeologists, historians, sociologists, and allied disciplines together. This diverse group, representing an...

I recently published the response I had from Prof.Gabriel Cooney (March 13th 2014) to my enquiries as to the status of the report ‘Review of the context of the excavation of a crannog in Drumclay townland, Co. Fermanagh on the route of the Cherrymount Link Road’. Although we got the apparent title of the report, there was no information other than it would be ‘released shortly’.   Following form that, I wrote to the current Minister for the Environment, Mark H. Durkan (March 22nd 2014) asking the same question. On March 25th 2014 I received notification that ‘The content of your correspondence has been noted and a response will issue in due course’. Today (April 11th 2014) I have received the following response from Brian McKervey, on behalf of the Minister: Drumclay crannog during excavation “Mr Chapple   Thank you for your email of 22 March to Minister Durkan, who has asked me to respond on his behalf, about the publication of the Review of the context of the ex...

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the secure button at the right. If you think it is interesting or useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. To help keep the site in operation, please use the amazon search portal at the right - each purchase earns a small amount of advertising revenue **] Some time ago, Stuart Rathbone (he of Campaign for Sensible Archaeology fame) posed the question of ‘what was it like on archaeological excavations in pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland?’ I’d meant to reply at the time, but – as these things do – it slipped my mind. Before I forget again, I thought I’d set down a few notes about way back then as a record of that time. Excavation in full swing at Rinnaraw 1989 I began my study of archaeology in UCG in September 1988. The way that the 1st Arts course was set up then (and I believe it still is) was that you had to pick four subjects for first year, reducing that to two in your second...