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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 year for your degree. Rightly or wrongly,
archaeology was seen as something of a ‘soft option’ to fill the requirement of
what to take as a fourth subject. That was the primary reason that the first
year class habitually had about 200 students – enough to fill the Cairns
lecture theatre (named for the economist, John Elliot Cairns) – and, in my time at least, this evaporated down to about 20
for 2nd and 3rd year. Back then the entirety of the required coursework for the
year were four essays. I remember one being on the Neanderthals and another on
Early Christian monasteries. Based on one’s scores on these essays the Department
made the selection as to who was invited to go on the university training
excavation. At any rate, that was the official story. I have a feeling that
this was relatively loosely interpreted, relying as much on a student's enthusiasm for the
subject as anything else. It was coming close to the end of term when I was
approached by Tom Fanning and invited to join him on the excavation of Rinnaraw, Co. Donegal. I use the word ‘invited’, but the real dynamic of the situation
could be better summed up in words like ‘told’, ‘informed’, or ‘ordered’. I was
given the strong impression that this would be ‘a good thing’ to do, it ‘would
look good on the CV’ … and that refusal was not an option. That said, it had
been all I’d wanted all year, so there was no way I was going to refuse.
 |
| Overview of Rinnaraw excavation in 1989 |
So, one fine morning in July 1989 Tom loaded up
myself and two other students into his car and we began a sedate drive to
Donegal. On campus, we always addressed him as ‘Mr. Fanning’ – he’d not gotten
his PhD at that stage. Now he instructed us to call him ‘Tom’, though it felt
as much of a formal salutation as before. Even when we got back to college, and
long after, I always called him Tom. Usually he didn’t seem to mind, but every
so often I received a slight glare of rebuke for my ‘field informality’. Tom
had a number of reputations at UCG. One was that he had no sense of humour.
Time after time he’d wander along the blackboards, furtively looking for chalk
only to come away empty-handed. Invariably, he’d mutter ‘chalk appears to be at
a premium’ and chuckle to himself. He appeared to be largely alone in seeing
the humour in such situations. However, once away from the university and
installed in a pub with a whiskey he was witty, humorous, the life and soul of
the party, and told amazing stories. However, his other reputation was harder
to shake. He was widely known as … somewhat sparing of his financial assets …
to the point of parsimoniousness. I just have to say it plainly: he was mean!
The best description of him – though I won’t name the source – explained: ‘he
has a paralysis of the elbow that prevents him from dipping too far into his own
pocket’. That said, we were a bunch of students on a training dig and were
getting paid £30 a week, with accommodation included. As we were resident in Rinnaraw and had no means of transport, this effectively amounted to a somewhat less than princely £4.30 a day. I know it was a long time ago, but not so far back that you would have thought yourself rich with a fiver in your pocket! A further downside to the situation was when lunchtime came around Tom would make his way across the road with us to our accommodation (he had a house to himself slightly further away) and expect to be provided for. He sometimes even complained if the offered viands were not to his liking, instructing us to purchase better quality or different brands in future. I’m reliably informed that on one excavation of his, long before my time, the crew got so fed up of this mooching off their limited assets that they resolved to eat lunch only when he wasn’t around. We never took it that far, but were sorely tempted.
 |
| Saddle quern as discovered, face down, in Quadrant C |
Tom had dispatched one further graduate student to
Donegal a few days ahead of us to begin desodding of the area for the new season.
After we finally arrived at the site – Tom never broke the speed limit on any
occasion I ever travelled with him – we walked up to the newly uncovered area to inspect the
progress. I still remember standing there in the dimming light, the warm breeze
rustling the grass, and just feeling so incredibly excited that tomorrow I was going to start my first
ever archaeological excavation! Tom and the post-graduate were in deep
conversation about the desodding and the potential for discovering features by
the time my mind wandered off. Something on the ground had caught my attention
and I reached down and picked it up. It was a small piece of what I now know to
be metallic slag. However, as I was in the process of examining it, the
post-graduate was saying ‘… possible metallic object … have left it in situ for the moment … where did it
go? …’ It was at this point Tom caught my eye and angrily spat ‘Chapple! Put
that down!’ Perhaps not the most auspicious of starts.
 |
| Saddle quern after being turned over. |
The following morning we gathered on site and I
had resolved not to touch anything I was not specifically instructed to. From
memory, the newly opened portions of the site (quadrants C & D), to the north
of the house, were nominally (but not actually) gridded out in 2m blocks. Some of the others were tasked with investigating these new areas, myself
and another student were instructed to clean down part of the house wall (on
the southern end), partially excavated during the previous season. Tom set
about erecting the plane table and orienting last year’s site plan. My
companion, working diligently with trowel and brush, uncovered a furnace bottom
within the first twenty minutes. For those not familiar with the term, a
furnace bottom is just that – the material left in the bottom of the furnace
after the good iron has been drawn off. It is composed of all the impurities
along with quite a bit of the remaining iron. It retains the shape of the
rounded base of the bowl furnace and part of the tuyère, used to blow air up
through the furnace. On the other hand, if you’ve never seen one before (and
are possessed of a peculiarly juvenile sense of humour) it looks like a giant
metal breast replete with nipple. So, more a furnace boob than a furnace
bottom. But I digress. My friend excitedly called Tom over, explaining that
he’d found something metallic, but didn’t know what it was. Tom then spent some
time instructing us on the origin and formation of furnace bottoms – he may
have been mean in other ways, but sharing knowledge was not one of them! My
friend was then instructed to approach the plane table and retrieve the
brass-ringed end of the site measuring tape. This was gently reeled out to the
artefact and held in position while Tom calculated the angle and scaled the
length onto the site plan. It was only half an hour later, when I found an
artefact of my own, that I realised that there was a delicate etiquette at work
here of which I had not been fully aware. I uncovered an interesting looking
stone, gave it a bit of a brush down and realised that it was a shattered
portion of a rotary disc quern. I may not have had much experience in
archaeology, but I could recognise this! It had a smoothed underside where the
grain had been ground against the base stone. It had a coarser, curving
surface, and at its thickest edge, I could just make out the curvature of the
central perforation where the grain was fed in. I was well chuffed with my
discovery. I got up from my kneeling position and walked over to Tom, standing
sentinel-like at the plane table. ‘I need the measuring tape!’ I said ‘I’ve
just found a piece of a quern stone’. Tom – physically and metaphorically –
looked down on me (he was very tall … and I remain quite Hobbit-like) and, with
a brief sigh, replied ‘Let me see’. I took him over and showed him the
fragment. He looked down at me some more and said ‘No’. I couldn’t believe it!
How could he not recognise this for what it was? Admittedly, it had broken in a
slightly unusual way, so that it resembled a slightly squashed ‘Z’ that has
been left out in the sun. Astonished at his lack of perspicacity, I began to
enlighten him, but I was silenced with another swift ‘No’. He sighed and
explained ‘Until I confirm your suspicion, you’ve not found anything. It is
only for the site archaeologist to say what has been discovered’. Well, that
was me told! After that, I couched my descriptions of what I’d found in
appropriately vague language and only approached the plane table to retrieve
the end of the tape measure when beckoned.
 |
| Saddle quern being taken off site |
In terms of the general work on the site, we were
instructed to only excavate in our designated 2m square. I found this
particularly problematic, as Tom required that we all work at the same pace,
with the entire surface being brought down at exactly the same rate. Thus,
there could not be any steps or steep inclines between your square and your
neighbour’s area. Any enthusiastic trowelling that lowered your area more
quickly than those around you brought Tom’s wrath and the accusation that you
were ‘creating features’. The site was on the edge of a slight drop, and we
were instructed to dump our spoil over the edge to the west. Tom wanted us to
carefully hand sift our spoil to ensure that no artefacts were inadvertently
overlooked. However, the wind always seemed to conspire to turn any attempt at
careful examination of the spoil into a swirling, choking dust cloud. It was
for this reason that we frequently attempted to wait until Tom was otherwise
engaged, and then just fling the spoil over the edge and run for it. Thinking
back on that excavation, I remember that I had the same ‘charcoal addiction’
that many newly minted excavators suffer from. Simply put: it’s a
near-unshakable belief that a) anything even remotely black is charcoal; b) all
charcoal is of the highest importance and must be bagged and retained.
Thankfully, Tom was remarkably patient on this point and gave careful tuition
on what should (and should not) be saved. I clearly remember my first encounter
on this topic, when I’d called him over to suggest that we bag some wonderful,
important charcoal … charcoal that was actually a piece of a rotted briar and
of no particularly great vintage.
 |
| The delicate art of 'back spading' |
In many respects, the work of excavation hasn't changed much in the last quarter century. We were usually on our knees with some large trowel that owed more to the broadsword tradition than the elegant and sophisticated 4-inch WHS pointing trowel I later came to know and love. Coal-shovels, plastic buckets, and fire-side brushes were all de rigueur, same as today. In more recent times, I've seen ferocious brick-hammers and mini-mattocks used, but here we had delicate hand-picks that, in retrospect at least, seemed laughably effete. I don't remember there being any long-tail shovels, nor were there any mattocks. For that matter there was no requirement for hard hats, steel-toed safety boots, high-viz vests, sun block, or gloves. I was about to write that I have no memory of there having been kneelers in use, but a quick survey of the photos shows that to be a lie. As a research dig, there was no sign of what was to become the most ubiquitous of all excavation tools: the mechanical excavator. The one tool that was there in spades was ... well ... spades. Any large-scale work that couldn't be carried out with a trowel was done by spade. The postgraduate student shipped off ahead of us had desodded Quadrants C and D by spade (and left the sods neatly piled up on the windward side to protect us from the worst of the spoilheap dust. When these quadrants were taken down it was by 'backspading' where the ground is broken up in thin spits over a large area. I've never seen this done on any other site, thought this may be because on most sites the mechanical excavator removed everything down to the natural, leaving only enough for the 'shovel scraping'. I've also never been on a site since where the plane table dominated. My memory is that Tom explained that he'd learned the methodology at Knowth, Co. Meath (where he was only the second person in modern times to enter the second passage, after George Eogan). Looking back now, I see that some of the biggest changes have been in terms of the measuring devices. Back then it was quite usual to have fabric tapes with brass-bound tips and winding handles, in sewn leather cases. While these have been replaced with near identical plastic versions, the folding wooden ruler has, to the best of my knowledge, all but disappeared from the excavator's repertoire.
 |
| Tom unfolding his measuring stick |
Tom had designed the site so that a central baulk
remained running roughly north-west to south-east through the site. Among other
things, his was intended to allow a site-wide vertical stratigraphic record to
be maintained. However, it never ceased to be a source of aggravation to him
from students tripping over it (largely me, I’m afraid) to it always appearing
to be directly in the path of the best and most promising archaeology.
Invariably, Tom would sigh and then chuckle to himself – In whatever passed for
a sense of humour – and say: ‘heaven lies under the baulk’. In this instance it
turns out he was largely correct. I was told that in his last year on the site,
when they finally removed the baulk, that some of the best finds were recovered
from it. It wasn’t funny – but it was right.
 |
| Excavation in Quadrant B |
 |
| Drain inside house (I think) |
 |
| Fragment of trough quern with stylistic links to Scotland |
In reviewing the photographs that I have from this
time, I’m struck by a number of things. First is that they’re in black &
white. Following from this is that I didn’t take another archaeology-related
photograph for several years – the next photos in my collection date from 1991!
I’ve always been interested in photography. I’ve never had much skill, but I’ve
always had an interest. When I was a child, I wanted a camera like the one my
dad had: an SLR with focusable lens, aperture and shutter speed settings. That
was a ‘proper’ camera! What I got for my birthday one year (my 14th or 15th
birthday, I think) was definitely not that! It was a ‘snappy’ camera with a
fixed lens and nothing else. I was less than enthused, though I do believe that
my parents may have had deeper insight into my photographic abilities that I
realised! However, this was what I had to work with and I was certainly going
to bring it with me to Donegal! My choice of going monochrome was, I think,
purely influenced by my university reading. Simply put, all these excavation
reports I’d been reading in the James Hardiman Library had black and white
photos in them, so it must have translated in my little mind that, if I’m going
on an excavation, I’d better be taking the same kind of stuff. That little
camera went everywhere with me while we were in Donegal and I tried to
photograph everything with it. I took quite a few shots of us working on the
site, though I also took lots of the various artefacts as they were discovered.
Unfortunately, my combined lack of photographic knowledge and general sense meant
that all the artefacts are out of focus and off-centre. It was all off-centre
because what I could see through the viewfinder wasn’t what was taken by the lens,
and as a cheap ‘snappy’ camera it didn’t have the ability to focus on anything
closer than c.0.5m, so everything was
blurry. Tom was unaware of my lack of technical prowess and repeatedly
requested that I promise not to publish any of these. Unless there comes a time
when such egregiously out of focus images can be restored to sharpness and
clarity, I’m afraid that I will have to stick by that agreement.
 |
| Shell midden during excavation |
 |
| One of the shell middens |
 |
| Shell midden during excavation |
The second thing is the lack of archaeological
photos for several years after this point. This is, in part, related to my lack
of familiarity with black and white photography. Specifically, my lack of
experience with getting the stuff printed. If memory serves, it used to cost IR£5-7 to get a 24-exposure roll of colour printed. I hadn’t realised that B&W
didn’t work the same way. I dropped the film in and said ‘get me a set of
prints, please’. To make matters worse, my girlfriend at the time had asked for
a set of prints of her own … so I must have said ‘get me two sets of prints,
please’. I nearly keeled over when I went to collect the prints a couple of
weeks later, only to find that my bill was in the region of £20 … each. No
wonder I didn’t take a photo for several years and only then when it was on a
work account! Looking back, I'm also struck by my early interest in doing panoramic shots. Anyone that reads this blog of knows me through Facebook or Twitter will be aware of my predilection for these 'stitched together' images. They're pretty easy to do and there are quite a few free applications that can crate them automatically. Back then it was a case of taking two photographic prints and a stick of glue and attempting to carefully match them together. For the purposes of this piece, I've redone the panoramas in digital format ... I think they came out pretty alright!
 |
| Excavation of one of the internal corners of the house |
Looking over these photographs reminds me that
this was the last time I saw Edward. Edward was from Raphoe in Donegal, about
30 miles away from Rinnaraw. I’d met him during my time in the Boy Scouts in
our early teens and, along with one or two others, had a number of adventures
(and misadventures) across various Irish hillsides and mountains. These
generally included getting lost and/or drenched. On one occasion, it even
involved a six-pack of beer (illegally sold to three underage Scouts) which
exploded inside a small tent somewhere near the Barnesmore Gap – but that’s
another story! Somewhere along the way, Edward’s name got mentioned to Tom, together
with the fact that he was ‘interested in history’. My memory was more that
Edward’s interests lay in 20th century Russian history, but Tom still suggested
that I give him a call and see if he was interested in coming along. The
telephone call was made, Edward was interested, and was duly deposited in
Rinnaraw a couple of days later by his mother. I took him up onto site,
introduced him to Tom who provided some basic instruction and gave him a square
to trowel. Tom then turned to me and said ‘and, of course, you’ll be taking
care of his food out of your own allowance’ and then walked away. Such were the
times and such were the trials of working with Tom!
 |
| Excavation along south-western wall, near entrance |
While Tom completed the excavation, he didn’t
survive long enough to write it up for publication. That task was eventually
taken on by my old friend, and very talented archaeologist, Michelle Comber.
She noted that “Upon removal from storage, the excavation archive was found to
contain small finds, some of the quern fragments, iron slag and samples of soil,
charcoal, bone and shell. Site records included a number of plans and
excavation diaries, in addition to miscellaneous items of paperwork relating to
funding, dating and licensing. Several of the small finds were deteriorating and
all required cleaning and re-bagging, as did the bone and shell.” (2006, 68). So,
not the pristine, well-organised, and complete archive that might have been
hoped for!
 |
| The 'anvil stone' during de-sodding |
 |
| Overview of Quadrant C, with the 'anvil stone' in the background |
In discussing some of these photographs a few
years ago with Brian Dolan, then a PhD candidate at UCD, he noted that the this
final publication makes no mention of the anvil stone. I was pretty surprised,
as it had been quite an important aspect of the 1989 excavation. It’s location
can be clearly seen in the ‘tang’ where we extended Quadrant C to the
south-west, just to include it (Comber 2006, 78, fig. 7). The very same stone
was used as the site datum for the re-survey of the site carried out by Liam
Hickey (another old friend and companion on assorted misadventures/misdemeanors)(Comber 2006, 86, fig. 11). On site, Tom had expressed an opinion that
this particular stone – flat-topped and standing about 0.5m above the field
surface – may have been used as an anvil stone. It seemed like a pretty
reasonable suggestion. To test the hypothesis, we extended the grid area of the
site and de-sodded around it. We recovered a pretty substantial quantity of
rusted metalwork that seemed to be mostly nails and similar corroded pieces.
The published report doesn’t list where all the iron pieces came from (unlike
the slag and furnace bottoms), but there is certainly no explicit connection
made to this stone. Looking at our haul of rusty iron bits and pieces, Tom
decided that they did not constitute evidence that it had been used as an anvil
– or anything for that matter. Reinforcing his dictum that it wasn’t a find
until he said it was, he closed the matter and would allow no further
discussion. I take his point that the evidence was not sufficiently robust to
prove beyond reasonable doubt that this stone was used in this matter at the
time the house was occupied, though I think it deserved more notice than it got
in his notes and in his thinking – which is why I mention it here. Another find
that did not make it into the publication was found – I think – by myself. It
was an old-fashioned brass stud with a swivel head, for a detachable collar. It
was recovered from the northern portion of the site, between the cashel wall
and the house. It was found almost directly below a set of initials carved into
one of the earth-fast boulders of the cashel wall. I can’t remember the
initials, but my memory is that the second initial was the same as that of the
surname of the current landowners. Tom seemed to extract considerable delight
from the notion that the stud was lost there as part of what may be
euphemistically described as ‘courting’. I can clearly see why this didn’t make
it into the site notebooks, or the final publication. Comber (2006, 68) notes
that “Some of the larger quern fragments are missing from the archive and are,
therefore, represented by earlier photographs.” It’s merely a suggestion, but I
wonder if they’re not still stored in the shed we used as a site hut. Google
Street View shows a long, low set of white-painted buildings with black doors
[here]. I can’t remember which one we used to store the finds and equipment, but
there’s a chance that this is where the larger stone items remain.
 |
| Napoleonic-period watchtower, Horn Head |
 |
| Napoleonic-period watchtower, Horn Head |
Our evenings were our own and Tom usually
retreated to his own accommodation. On a couple of evenings we walked the five
miles out to Horn Head to enjoy the views and the remains of the
Napoleonic-period watchtower, but that soon lost its lustre. On other
occasions, Tom would take us on educational jaunts, including one trip to Doe Castle in the fading light. On some evenings we’d retire to a local pub, but
without sufficient funds to buy more than one drink it was a pretty poor
affair. On the weekend we were there, we managed to hitch a ride on a trawler
that was bringing concrete blocks out to Tory Island. Despite having a long
maritime tradition in part of my family (My father was the first male in 250 years not to enter the Royal Navy), I was hideously, violently, and
repeatedly ill over the side of the boat on our way out to Tory … with a repeat
performance on the way back. If you can stand the sea conditions, it’s a
remarkably worthwhile trip for the archaeology, the local artistic community
(fostered by the late Derek Hill), but mostly for the friendly, welcoming
people you’ll meet. When we got back to the boat to take us back to Portnablagh,
we found that the guys on board had off-loaded their cargo and spent the
afternoon fishing. When we stepped ashore, we were each presented with an
armful of fresh-caught herring (though considering how poorly I felt at the
time, I can’t imagine I gave the thanks they deserved). As there here was more
than sufficient to share, we brought a couple of specimens up to Tom’s house
for him. It didn’t go as well as we had anticipated. Tom looked horrified, and
instructed us to take them away and gut them for him, and take the heads and
tails off while we were at it. He did promise that he’d be down at some stage
to collect the finished product. That never materialised, and the fish was
still sitting in the freezer by the time we packed up and left. I remember this
distinctly as I was pretty annoyed about it. The fish we’d kept for ourselves
had all been baked in butter and herbs and had been delicious beyond compare.
And yet, we still had more that were going to waste, but felt we couldn’t touch
them in case Tom did turn up to take them. More fool us. To this day, whenever I
get the smell of cooking fish I am instantly transported back to that little
house and that summer spent digging. Other culinary adventures were less
successful. Having spent so many years in the Boy Scouts, I had been
successfully indoctrinated with the firm and sure belief that boiling was the
answer to any food that you couldn’t easily fry. On my first attempt, the pasta
had to be rescued from my clutches after a mere hour merrily bubbling away. I
got shouted at and the term al dente
was used in anger … possibly more than once. Thankfully, I now have a
marginally more sophisticated palate, though I’m not much improved as a cook.
 |
| The young, bemulleted, Chapple in ripped jeans and Bob Dylan T-shirt at Doe Castle |
I don’t think I dreamt it, but I can find no trace
of a pub or clubhouse of some sort near the pier at Portnablagh on Google Street View. The area appears to have been extensively redeveloped in the last
quarter century, so it may have disappeared in a wave of modernisation. I know
that I was never inside the building, but I remember being able to see it from
the site and from the front of our house. They had an outdoor speaker system
and, when they got set up for the evening, they played Bryan Adams’ Summer of '69 on full volume. In the
quiet evening stillness, you could hear it clearly belting out across the bay.
I’m sure they must have played other songs, but this is the one I remember.
Whatever about the smell of cooking fish, hearing this track brings me back to
that time and place (cf. Weddle 2012).
 |
| Round Tower, Tory Island |
 |
| Collection of carved stones, Tory Island |
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| Portion of a cross slab, Tory Island |
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| Possible bullaun stone and gravestone fragment, Tory Island |
When I left home to come to Donegal, my Dad had
seen me off and slipped me some cash with the strict instruction that it was
‘for emergencies only’. In my two weeks on the site, I’d been remarkably well
behaved and not dipped into it. However, on our last day we had been invited up
to the Portnablagh Hotel for dinner. The hotelier was also the landowner of the
site, co-funder of the excavation, and had a strong interest in archaeology
generally. He had also been involved in setting up the Donegal Survey, which
preceded the OPW-funded county survey. The fruits of this labour, Brian Lacey’s
Archaeological Survey of County Donegal
was on sale in the foyer. I decided that this was just the sort of emergency my
father had wanted me to be prepared for and bought it at once. I never once
regretted the decision, though I did regret having to explain to my Dad that he
wasn’t getting his money back!
 |
| Tom discussing the excavation in Quadrant A, near the internal drain |
We had an equally calm and sedate drive back to
Galway, never once troubling the speed limit. While I have berated Tom for his
meanness, he could occasionally be generous too. He suggested that we stop in
Donegal town for ice cream. I was entrusted with a five-pound note and
delegated to purchase the four cones – and instructed not to forget to bring
back change! In my eagerness to get the task accomplished, I realised only too
late, that I’d not really paid attention to Tom when he said where he’d be
parked waiting. That’s why one of our number had to be dispatched to find me,
wandering lost in Donegal, with melting ice cream starting to run down my
fingers.
 |
| Troweling in Quadrant C. The 'anvil stone' is just out of shot to the right |
Somewhere along the way home, I fell asleep, only
regaining consciousness as we pulled up on campus, in front of ‘the quad’. I
remember becoming aware of the grey limestone buttresses contrasted against the
gently swaying leaves and branches of the trees in the avenue. Even then I felt
that I was waking from a weird dream, as if two weeks sweating in the dust of
Rinnaraw had been an elaborate, but short-lived, hallucination. I spent most of
the remainder of the summer in purgatory, in a ‘real’ job, serving up fast food
to Galway’s summer hoards. I hated every minute of it and longed to get back to
an archaeological excavation.
 |
| Central hearth during excavation |
In writing this piece, I firstly wanted to set
down an account of a type of archaeological excavation that, even then, was an
anachronism. The next excavation I was on (Athenry Castle for two weeks between
August-September 1989) was much closer to what most current archaeologists
would recognise, with individuals being responsible for producing plan and
section drawings, along with filling in pro
forma context sheets. Beyond that, it has stirred up old memories not
visited for many years. I’ve been vastly conflicted about how much I could or
should say about Tom’s personality – most especially his extreme parsimony.
Eventually, I’ve gone with the fact that it’s an honest account and that to
leave this aspect out would have created a portrait, though more flattering,
that would have rendered the subject unrecognisable to those who actually knew
and worked with him. For all that, I still miss him. After all the other
excavations I’ve been involved in, I still hold this one as separate and special,
and I’m still grateful for the experience.
 |
| Tom Fanning, Lord of all he surveys |
I’m finding it hard to reconcile that
enthusiastic, but socially inept, kid with this overweight, middle aged, still
socially inept, veteran of too many years spent digging in cold fields for bad
pay. That summer will be 24 years ago this coming July (2014). Tom was diagnosed with
cancer and died 21 years ago (1993). After initial treatment in Dublin he had been
moved back to Galway to be near his family when the end came. I went to the hospital to see
him, but was turned away because he was too weak to receive visitors. I had
simply wanted to say ‘thanks’. Thanks for the experience of digging a fantastic
site in beautiful weather in an incredibly scenic part of the world. Thanks for
taking the time to teach me how to hold a trowel so I didn’t remove my knuckles
(at least not twice in a row). Thanks for explaining the functions and origins
of the artefacts we found – such a generosity of knowledge and experience that
should be as well acknowledged and celebrated as any other aspect of his
character. Thanks for the company, the trust, and the friendship. Thanks for
being allowed the mark of distinction of being able to say ‘I dug with Tom
Fanning’.
Just ‘Thanks’.
 |
| A break from back spading and troweling in Quadrant C |
References
Weddle, C. 2012 'The Sensory Experience of Blood
Sacrifice in the Roman Imperial Cult' in Day, J. (ed.) Making Senses of the Past: Toward a Sensory Archaeology. Center for
Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 40. Southern Illinois
University, Carbondale. 137-159.
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