Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

I'm just back home in Belfast after a fantastic day in Enniskillen at the Drumclay Crannóg: The life and times of a Fermanagh lake-dwelling conference. I'm hoping to put together a comprehensive set of posts covering all the lectures given, but in the meantime, here are a selection of my photos from the day: The amazingly skilled wood worker was part of a living history display His lathe is foot powered! An example of his remarkable work The Lady with the Spinning Thread! Living history reenactor showing the use of distaff and spindle whorl Ricardo the bone & antler worker's table Dr. Nóra Bermingham :  Weaving together the excavation results Have you ever heard 200 people simultaneously say 'wow'? You would have today as   Caitríona Moore  delivered   Investigation of what the crannóg inhabitants made, used and discarded Ricardo's bone combs - including a reproduction of the Drumclay bird-headed example Prof. Aida...

[** 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 I | Part III > White Island from the jetty Following on from our trip to Boa Island, we decided to head for White Island , about 10 miles to the south-east by road, and still in Lough Erne. This one you can’t drive to, so we had to get a boat from the Castle Archdale marina  [ map ]. And that’s where it went wrong … the sign clearly said that the boat ran from 11am to 6pm and that they took lunch from 1pm to 2pm, with departures every hour on the hour. We arrived at a little before midday only to be told that the boat would be coming back at 12:00 and the next outgoing sailing would not be until 2pm. I...

[** 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 **] < Back to the Main Post > For your viewing pleasure: two panoramic overviews of the site in 3D (click for larger image). To view these anaglyphs, you’ll need to buy a set of the red/blue kind (or make your own ). Overview of the church and enclosure, from the north-east. Overview of the church and enclosure, from the north-west. < Back to the Main Post >

European Heritage Open Days was held on the weekend of 13-14th September this year. I'm not sure of actual numbers of buildings that were open, but it was certainly impressive and there was a huge choice to be had around Belfast alone. I did my best to get out and see what I could. In all, I got out to see six properties and have several Gbs of photos and a small pile of semi-garbled notes. Again, this year, I decided to concentrate on locations in my adopted home of east Belfast, though I did make an excursion into Belfast city centre. In the fullness of time (read: in the next 8 to 12 months), I will attempt to get a few blog posts together to promote these beautiful buildings, to share them with the wider world, and (hopefully) convince a few people to come to Northern Ireland and experience these places for themselves. In the interim, I just wanted to share a few photos of the places I got to see. More importantly, I want to express my thanks to the organisers and to the sma...

Looking back through my email correspondence, I see that it has been a while since there has been any communication on the status of the much anticipated Drumclay Crannog Report by Prof. Gabriel Cooney. I'm not going to let this one go, so this morning I emailed Mark H Durkan, Minister for the Environment: September 15 2014 Dear Minister Durkan, I last wrote to you on March 22nd 2014 regarding 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’. On April 11th 2014 I received your reply via Mr Brian McKervey, Acting Director of Built Heritage, NIEA. At that time, I was informed that you were considering the contents of that report and were in the process of sharing it with your Executive colleagues. I would like to enquire what progress you have made in this regard in the 157 days since your response, and when you propose to publish the report. Yours, Robert M ...

[** 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 **] I present the concluding segment of an epic trawl through an excellent conference! < Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V Parker Pearson in Sligo © Chapple Collection The final session of the Archaeology of Gatherings Conference was chaired by Fiona Beglane, who welcomed  Prof. Mike Parker Pearson  ( Institute of Archaeology, University College London ). Like many in archaeology, I only know him through his published works and television appearances. On TV, I’ve heard him speak and seen him wander about half of Salisbury plain. He is a respected authority on all things  Stonehenge  a...