Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Over the past few days I’ve been posting some photos I took of St Manchan’s shrine in the National Museum of Ireland. They have been particularly well received (for the beauty of the object, rather than any photographic ability of mine), so I thought I might collect them together with a few words to provide context. St Manchán mac Silláin was an early Irish saint. He is believed to have founded the monastery of Liath Mancháin in AD 645, on land provided by St St Ciarán of Clonmacnoise. The site lies in the modern townland of Lemanaghan, near Pollagh in County Offaly. One of the best known stories about St Manchán is that he was amongst a group of religious types who gathered to pray and fast in AD 664/665. The reason for this pray-fest/fast … enlightenment? … peace? … kindness and goodness towards the world in general? ... not at all! These holy rollers were praying (at the request of joint high-kings Diarmait Ruanaid and Blathmac) that their god would send a plague ...

Books ( Source ) Greetings one and all! Welcome to my 16th (and long overdue) ramble through my selection of the most interesting and exciting of the archaeology and history papers on the Academia.edu site. But first (and it will only take a moment) please divert your attention to Stuart Rathbone’s fantastic book: Archaeological Boundaries. Discussions, Experiments and Unprovoked Attacks . It’s published on the Leanpub platform and, while there is a suggested pricing, you can have it for free! I stand by my earlier claims that it the among the most significant books on Irish archaeology ever published and positions Stuart as among the most interesting and innovative thinkers in the field. Go on! You know you want to! If that’s not enough for you, come peruse my selection of freely available papers from Academia.edu: Marcus J Vandergoes, Maarten Blaauw et al .: A revised age for the Kawakawa/Oruanui tephra, a key marker for the Last Glacial Maximum in New ...