Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

At the end of last year (2020) the Chapple Family were driving back to Belfast from a few days away in Fermanagh & Tyrone when we decided to stop off at Castlecaulfield to see the ruins of the Plantation period house there. The core of the standing structures were constructed on the orders of  Sir Toby Caulfeild between 1611 and 1619  [ Wiki ]. The house was burnt down during the 1641 Rebellion and although it was re-inhabited and renovated, it was in ruins by the end of the century. Today it is a windblown, picturesque ruin that seems very popular with local walkers and strollers. Even in its current state, the sheer size of the ruins gives an impression of its former opulence and  grandeur. Naomi Carver and Colm Donnelly's report on the 2011 excavations at the site note [ here ]: Its original plan would have consisted of a main block with two wings, U-shaped in plan, and with a gatehouse at the north-western corner. The manor-house was originally three stories ...

  As part of the Chapple Family trip through Fermanagh & Tyrone, we stopped off at the unassuming graveyard of Caldragh on Boa Island. In amongst the small, uninscribed stones and the handful of 19 th and 20 th century headstones is one of the gems of Irish archaeology – the Boa Island figure. This is a so-called ‘Janus’ figure with a face on either side of the stone as wells as the Lustymore Idol – a figure sculpture moved here from a nearby island. Both are probable representations of Iron Age deities and are much better described and explained by Wikipedia [ here ]. The last time I was here with the Chapples Minor was in the summer of 2013. It was a gorgeous day, with wonderful light and I managed to get some acceptable photos of the carvings [ here ]. Unfortunately, the light wasn’t nearly as good on our October 2020 visit and the resulting video doesn’t do justice to these remarkable carvings. However, it does provide the opportunity for a few minutes of relaxation in a ...

  At the end of last year the Chapple family headed off to explore the archaeology of Tyrone & Fermanagh and we stopped along the way at Clogher Hill Fort. Clogher is a complex site that, at least, goes back to the Late Bronze Age. The site is located on one of the highest points in the area and sits at an ancient crossroads that would have put it at the centre of traffic, trade, and (ultimately) power. The site itself appear to have started off as a large enclosure defied by a bank and ditch (Hill Fort), with a later ringfort built on top in the Early Medieval period. Away from the main site, on the southern tip of this north-south running hill, is a beautiful ring barrow of Bronze Age or Iron Age date. Between the two is a roughly triangular mound, thought to be used for royal inaugurations. Excavations by the wonderful Richard Warner in the 1970s produced evidence of contacts with the wider world and demonstrate a trade in high value goods, including wine amphorae from the...

Belatedly, continuing the tale of the Chapple Family excursion through mid Ulster, we visited the picturesque ruins of Tully Castle on the shores of Lough Erne, in Fermanagh. Tully is a fortified house and bawn built in 1619 for Sir John Hume, a Scottish planter, having dispossessed the native Maguires of their land. Twenty-two years later, during the 1641 Irish Rebellion, Rory Maguire decided to take back those lands. He arrived with his forces at Tully on Christmas Eve to discover that most of the males of the household were absent and the castle was quickly surrendered to him. While the members of the Hume family were escorted away, Maguire ordered the murder of some 75 others and had the castle burnt. Understandably, it was never inhabited again. By the 1970s it looked close to collapse but has been sensitively conserved and is well worth a visit, though the knowledge the so many met a violent end here does seem to add a haunting feeling to the place. Most of the photos you'll ...

It seems so long ago now, but during one of the inter-lockdown periods of last year the Chapple family headed for the distant shores of mid-Ulster to spend a few days in the open air and experiencing some of the great archaeology of the Tyrone/Fermanagh area. Along the way the Chapples Minor were fed, watered, and introduced to some of the most beautiful and important archaeological sites anywhere you choose to look ... well, in my opinion at any rate. First on our virtual tour is the Beaghmore complex of Early Bronze Age cairns, stone circles and stone alignments. From excavations carried out from the 1940s onward it has been established that the area has been inhabited since the Neolithic period and that some of the later Bronze Age monuments directly overlie the remains of Neolithic field walls etc. Over-farming throughout these early periods led to a deterioration of soil quality and eventually resulted in the grown of substantial bog cover, which enveloped and protected the site. ...

In this, the concluding piece from the Chapple Family’s sojourn in the wonderful county of Donegal, we stopped off at Rathmullan Priory. I would point out that we only got there by accident – we never actually intended to go. We been staying in Buncrana and had decided to head further west to my old stomping grounds around Dunfanaghy and Portnablagh. As I detailed in my previous post [ here ], I’d managed to escape the clutches of my beach-loving family and spend some time wandering around the secluded ruins of Doe Castle. Well, by the time I returned from the castle, everyone was pretty much exhausted from playing on the beach. We slowly packed up, made our way back to the car, turned on the GPS and headed for home. A well-prepared, thoughtful driver would have been aware of the GPS settings and, perhaps, plotted some way points to ensure that the correct route was followed. I, on the other hand, simply turned it on, set the address for Buncrana and trusted to whatever small gods exis...

In the previous instalment to this series of 360-degree video posts I took you to see the remains of the Early Medieval house at Rinnaraw [ here ]. The back story to this was that I’d left the rest of the family on the beach at Portnablagh and walked back to Rinnaraw on my own. Partly, this was because I didn’t think they’d be all that interested in such an apparently ‘slight’ monument that would require trudging across a field to go see. The other part was that I felt the visit should be a solo encounter with the site and an opportunity for personal reflection and meditation, which is hard to achieve when each of the Chapples Minor are trying to throw the other off the edge of the precipice. All went well. I completed my filming and ruminations in perfect peace and eventually dandered back to where the rest of the family were on the beach. I had hoped that all would have run through their fascination with sand and seawater by now and we’d soon be on our way to see more archaeology. Tu...