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ireland Iron Age

Ireland’s
Invisible People
the Celtic present
meets the Celtic past
Comparing Ireland with the fast growing ‘tiger’ economies of the Far East,
economists coined the term ‘Celtic Tiger’; the irony is that evidence for ‘Celtic’
Ireland is almost as rare as evidence for an indigenous species of Irish tiger. Has
a decade of development-led excavations altered this picture? Brendon Wilkins
assesses the new evidence emerging for the Irish Iron Age.

28 current archaeology | www.archaeology.co.uk December 2010 |


photo: Markus Casey

R
ising majestically above Dublin’s Above Mid-excavation name of God,’ he began, ‘and of the dead genera-
busiest street, the Georgian aerial view of the site at tions from which she receives her old tradition of
Rahally, from the south-
façade of the General Post Office nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her
east.
still contains bullet holes – grim children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.’ A
reminders of Easter Monday 1916, line can be drawn between those bullet holes and
when Padraic Pearse read a decla- the development and implementation of some of
ration that signalled the start of the Easter Rising the strongest and most enviable national monu-
and the beginning of Irish Independence. ‘In the ments legislation in the world. 

| Issue 249 www.archaeology.co.uk | current archaeology 29


ireland Iron Age

but we cannot see them,’ he wrote. ‘Thus we may


truly describe them as the invisible people.’
Archaeologists throughout the world will rec-
ognise this conundrum: does absence of evidence
equal evidence of absence? Are Iron Age people
‘invisible’ because Ireland was plunged into a
Dark Age of economic and cultural stagnation?
Or are Iron Age people ‘invisible’ because our
excavation strategies have hitherto been ineffec-
tive? As the Celtic Tiger boomed, archaeologists
were presented with a once in a lifetime oppor-
tunity to finally find Pearse’s dead generations.
photo: CRDS Ltd

Changing times, changing fortunes


The National Monuments Act was enacted Above Aerial view of Perhaps it was his long years as a dairy farmer that
in 1930, when the nascent state was grasping a Rahally, showing the honed Gerry Mullins’s acute archaeological sen-
projected outline of the
new identity, independent of its former colonial sitivity to changes in landscape. As the machine
hillfort ditches.
master. If the last 700 years could be dismissed bucket exposed yet another ditch crossing the
as enslavement to the English garrison, then road corridor, the excavation director was quick
archaeology could be called upon to reveal a to notice what a field walking team, desk study
Gaelic Ireland that was fully free. But, as archae- and geophysical survey had failed to discover.
ology matured into a professional discipline Employed by Cultural Resource Development
focussed on the scientific recovery of information Services (CRDS Ltd) to undertake test excava-
about the past, evidence for the native ‘Celtic’ Ire- tions on the N6 Galway to East Balinasloe Road
land, glorified in art and literature, was far from Scheme, Mullins recognised that a series of four
forthcoming. concentric ditches cut into the flanks of Rahally
The Irish Iron Age is represented by a handful hill were the remnants of one of the largest hill-
of high profile ‘royal’ sites, occasional deposits forts ever discovered in Ireland.
of metalwork and an oral tradition of epic sagas. Irish hillforts date to the Late Bronze Age, but
The late Barry Raftery argued in his seminal were occupied for many centuries after, poten-
1994 book, Pagan Celtic Ireland, that these scant tially shedding light on the nature of society in
remains were the trappings of a small aristocratic Late Prehistoric Ireland. The number of known
elite, shedding little light on how the majority of hillforts in Ireland has increased dramatically
the population had lived. ‘These people existed in recent years (from estimates of 40 in 1972 to

landscape, Ireland maintained a dispersed rural population long


Dead generations into the Early Medieval period. There were no major urban centres
Debates concerning ‘unRoman Britain’ should look across the Irish until the Vikings arrived, and without the driving thrust of Roman
Sea. Ireland was never brought under Roman control, which means industrial pottery production, Irish sites are largely ceramic-free
the country missed out on the gift of a coherent network of long from the later Prehistoric until the later Medieval periods. Without
straight roads. The Gaelic for road is bothar, literally translated the conventional bookmarks of 43 AD and 410 AD, archaeologists
as ‘cow-path,’ a word that gives some insight into the ineffective have developed a different chronology, based on radiocarbon, that
transport network that Ireland inherited at the beginning of better reflects the duration of Irish time periods, which retain the
the Celtic Tiger boom. With no ‘top-down’ reorganisation of the same nomenclature as Britain.

Ireland AD400 AD850 1150


Early Medieval Late Medieval Anglo-Norman
Mesolithic Neolithic Bronze Iron Age
Age Anglo-Saxon Medieval
8000BC 4000BC 2500BC 700BC 43BC AD410 AD1066
Britain

30 current archaeology | www.archaeology.co.uk December 2010 |


given the well-known prac-
below Late La Tene
period metal artefact, tice of deposition in watery
of unknown function, places associated with Iron Age

photo: CRDS Ltd


recovered from the ritual. Other finds at the site included a damaged
marshy area of
polished axehead and Late Bronze Age pottery
the inner
ditch. sherds from the inner ditch fills, and a dam-
approximately 90 aged bone needle and whetstone from the outer
in 2007), but only a double-ditches. Charcoal samples have returned
small number have radiocarbon dates of 994-827 BC for the inner
been excavated. As a ditch, whilst the outer double-ditch and middle
consequence, questions ditch have been dated to 790-527 BC and 1090-
concerning the func- 900 BC respectively.
tion of these sites abound For a site the size of the Rahally hillfort, espe-
– with interpretations ranging from military, cially as it was previously unknown and unex-
industrial or ritual centres, occupied by either plored, one would expect a wealth of finds,
a large population, or a minority of high status documenting the lives, interests and functions
families. With so many unanswered questions, of the community that built it and made it their below A Neolithic
trackway at Edercloon;
hopes were high for the excavation team as they home. As there have been so few excavations of
note the accumulated
prepared to excavate the entire road corridor as it hillforts in Ireland, this site was expected to pro- depth of peat overlying
traversed the hill at Rahally. vide a wealth of information; it is notable in  this level of the bog.
Located in east County Galway near the vil-
lage of New Inn, the site at Rahally was on a
north-facing hillside, which formed part of a gla-
cial ridge surrounded by pastureland as well as
wet pasture and bog areas. East Galway is known
to have a complex archaeological landscape, and
there were several features already identified in
the vicinity of the proposed road corridor prior
to the discovery of the hillfort, including a bival-
late (double-ditched) ringfort immediately to
the south.
The hillfort was the earliest, and largest, archae-
ological monument discovered at Rahally during
the road scheme excavations. Four concentric
rings were identified, including an outer double-
ditch and two inner single-ditches, all extending
beyond the road corridor. The distance between
the outer double-ditches was about 450m, which
enclosed an area of 14.4ha. The ditches were up
to 4m wide and 1.5m in depth, with the outer-
most and innermost ditches being more substan-
tial than the middle. No upstanding evidence of
the banks was found in situ; however, banks were
indicated by the presence of sediment that had
slumped into the ditches, as well as many large
stones that were likely used as revetments.
On the northern edge of the inner ditch, at the
base of the hill, the fort builders had incorpo-
rated a natural wet, marshy area rather than cut-
ting the normal U-shaped ditch. A late La Tene
(500 BC-100 AD) metal artefact, of unknown
photo: CRDS Ltd

function, was found in this wet area. As the only


prehistoric metal object found on the site, it may
be significant that it was found in a wet context,

| Issue 249
ireland Iron Age

photo: John Sunderland


technology), but also a type of archaeological
landscape. But even with this extensive experi-
ence, nothing could have prepared her for the
spectacular site of Edercloon.
The story of Edercloon began almost 6,000
years ago, when a narrow trackway of branches
and twigs was laid down on the wet surface of a
photo: CRDS Ltd

County Longford bog, signalling the start of a


practice that would continue for the following
four millennia and would create one of the most
remarkable archaeological complexes
Above Overall plan the absence of this expected evidence. ever discovered in an Irish wetlands
of trackways (toghers) Rahally occupies a commanding environment.
and other structures
position, making good use of natural The bog lies in the townland of Eder-
excavated at Edercloon.
topography, but the vast empty space cloon, in the north-west corner of
Above right inside the hillfort brings us no closer to County Longford just south of the
Fragmentary alder understanding who built it, or why it was County Leitrim border. In April 2007,
bowl with carved and
used. A thousand years later, three ring- investigations in advance of the N4
perforated handles found
in a trackway of early forts were built on the hillside, indicating Dromod-Roosky Bypass by CRDS Ltd
Medieval date. the continued importance of Rahally into revealed that beneath the grassy sur-
the Early Medieval period. But, as far as face of the reclaimed bog, hidden by
right Brushwood trained
the ‘invisible people’ are concerned, once deep layers of peat, was a perfectly
to grow in a spiral pattern.
again they eluded the archaeologists preserved complex of wooden
grasp. If dryland sites proved deceptive, structures. In the following weeks,
then perhaps the Irish wetlands would 28 trenches were opened and over
hold the answer. 100 archaeologists from 17 coun-
tries arrived to work on this remarkable
Wood for the trees excavation.
The concentration of sites at Edercloon
Archaeological specialists usually was extremely dense, with 48 previously
tend to get involved with projects unknown wooden structures situated in an
during the post-excavation phase, area measuring 170m long and 30m wide.
bringing their expertise to bear Despite reclamation and drainage in the
on the processed artefacts and last century, these features were perfectly
ecofacts in the warm surround- preserved by the wet, anaerobic (oxygen-
ings of the lab. Wetland archaeolo- free) qualities of the bog. The structures
photo: John Sunderland

gist Catriona Moore is no stranger ranged from very large, multi-phase


to the cold outdoors, specialising not toghers (trackways), to short foot-
just in a type of artefact (wood-working paths, small platforms and simple
deposits of worked wood. The

32 current archaeology | www.archaeology.co.uk December 2010 |


structures dated from the Neolithic to the Early right Edecercloon wheel
Medieval period, when this part of the Edercloon fragment in situ, at the
base of a trackway.
bog was clearly an important focal point within
the surrounding landscape. This was particularly
the case in the centuries of the Late Bronze Age
(c.1000-700 BC) to the early Iron Age (c.700-200
BC), during which a network of very large track-
ways with associated platforms was built.
The profusion of very large sites within such
a small area is unparalleled in Ireland, though
dense concentrations of sites have been identi-
fied previously in bog environments. While this
alone is unusual, the Edercloon complex con-
tained even more surprises: interconnecting
trackways with meandering routes, several struc-
tures of immense scale, and repeated deposition

photo: CRDS Ltd


of objects within structures. The Edercloon arte-
fact assemblage, comprising bowls, spears, 

right A digital
reconstruction of the
Edercloon block wheel.

photo: Chiara Chiriotti, CRDS Ltd


photo: John Sunderland

Ireland’s earliest wheel alder, and covered with almost 140 clean, crisp finished. The outer curve is not continuous, and
A portion of block wheel discovered at Edercloon marks from a sharp-bladed tool, most likely an so this wheel, if completed, would not have been
is the earliest evidence for the wheel in Ireland, adze. The opposite side, which lay on the bog able to roll. Was this wheel a manufacturing
radiocarbon dated to 1206-970 BC. The wheel surface, is worked to a much lesser extent. When mistake, which the community then decided to
was found buried within the base of a large complete, this fragment would have been part reuse as an offering – or as added stability for
trackway, and represents approximately one- of a tripartite block wheel, similar to Bronze and the trackway? Or, was this wheel deliberately
third of a complete wheel. Iron Age examples of this type of wheel found in made for deposition in this fashion? It seems
There are two very distinct sides to the Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. likely that it must have more to do with the
Edercloon block wheel. The side which was What is most curious about the Edercloon enduring tradition of artefact deposition at the
face-upward when excavated is finely worked block wheel is that it could not have been site than with actual use for transport.

| Issue 249 www.archaeology.co.uk | current archaeology 33


ireland Iron Age

right Archaeologists
cleaning the outer
enclosure stake-holes at
Lismullin in preparation
for preliminary drawing.

photo: Mary Deevy


tool handles and many items of unknown func- of ritual activity, rather than lost as a result of use.
tion, is one of the largest collections of wooden With such breath-taking finds and structures,
objects ever to be archaeologically recovered from Edercloon certainly brings the ‘invisible people’
a raised bog in Ireland, and it is believed to represent a bit closer; but the homes and structures of
a distinct Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age practice of the builders are still missing. Even the artefacts
votive deposition. deposited at Edercloon were arguably selected for
The trackways and assemblage would surely be symbolic reasons, and are not representative of
more than enough to please any archaeologist; day-to-day lives in a way that might be expected
but it would be a hidden gem, found buried in at a similarly complex settlement site. If the elusive
the base of a large trackway, that would leave Iron Age still cannot be found at one of the best pre-
the entire team absolutely amazed: part of a served sites ever excavated in Ireland, then perhaps
wooden block wheel, now known to be the it is necessary to look at the most controversial.
earliest wheel in Ireland. Fragments of three
different wooden wheels, of varying form and Much ado about nothing?
date, were found in total, and represent the
first instance in Ireland where archaeologists The controversy surrounding the construction
have discovered wheels and trackways in direct of the M3 as it passed through the Tara-Skryne
association. The presence of wheels at Eder- valley in Co. Meath was described in CA 247.
cloon is most curious, when taken in light of What is sometimes lost in the polarised debate
the fact that none of the trackways from which about the validity of the road are considerations
these artefacts were recovered were suited of the significance of the archaeology itself.
to the use of wheeled vehicles. Additionally, Taking the ‘invisible people’ barometer used to
there is a broad chronological span between assess the other sites in this article, we might ask:
the three wheel fragments – from as early as 1206 was the protest about Lismullin much ado about
BC through to 880 AD – which points to a local nothing?
tradition of wheel manufacture over many cen- Between January and December 2007, excava-
turies. This evidence combines to indicate that tions in advance of the Dunshaughlin-Navan
these wheel fragments were likely to have been section of the M3 motorway revealed a large, post-
deliberately placed within the trackways as part built ceremonial enclosure, dating to the early Iron
Age (6th to 4th century BC), in the townland of
Lismullin, Co. Meath. The excavation was under-
If ever there was a place that deserved to be taken by ACS Ltd, fielding one of the largest profes-
sional archaeology teams ever assembled in Ireland,
preserved in the name of the dead generations including six excavation directors, and managed by
from prehistoric times up to historic times Aiden O’Connell. A committee of national experts
from the museum, curatorial and academic sector
up to completely recently – it was Tara. were also drafted in to advise on the excavations.
Lismullin was a multi-period site with evidence

34 current archaeology | www.archaeology.co.uk December 2010 |


from the Early-Middle Neolithic to the post-Medi-

photo: BKS Survery Ltd


eval period, but what motivated the declaration of
the site as a National Monument was the Iron Age
post enclosure.
The post enclosure occupied a natural, saucer-
shaped depression at the west of the site, sur-
rounded on all sides by higher ground. There
were three surviving elements: an outer enclo- screen was
sure, 80m in diameter, defined by a concentric employed at the end
double ring of post holes; a central inner enclo- of the entrance-way
sure, defined by a single ring of closely spaced to restrict movement
post holes; and an east-facing entrance, com- and view from the outer
prised of an avenue of widely-spaced post holes. enclosure to the central, cer-
The two outer rings are 1.5m-2m apart and the emonial space. The construc-
post holes were at an average of 0.6m. Charcoal tion and siting of the enclosure
from two post-pipes (the voids left once the posts suggest that it was custom-built to above Topographic
survey overlaid with plan
have rotted away) was radiocarbon dated to 520- serve the possible short-term needs of of the Lismullin enclosure.
380 BC and 490-370 BC respectively. its builders; a monument tailor-made Note how it occupies the
The inner ring was 16m in diameter and con- for a specific set of events in a carefully lowest point of the bowl-
tained a number of internal features, including chosen landscape setting. shape, rather than the
exact centre.
three pits with charcoal-rich fills (oriented The Lismullin post enclosure was an
towards the eastern entrance), as well as a slot exciting discovery, but in many ways it high-
trench, traversing the avenue, about 4m from lights Barry Raftery’s struggle to reconstruct the
the inner circle. It is likely this would have sup- character of everyday Iron Age life in Ireland. It
ported a screen, which would have restricted the was a ritual and ceremonial monument, with few
view from the entranceway into the inner enclo- finds to suggest that it was used and controlled
sure. A range of artefacts was recovered from the by anything other than an aristocratic elite. The
enclosed area, including a fragment of a rectan- invisible people remain invisible. The contro-
gular stone chisel or adze, and both Middle and versy surrounding the excavation also brings
Late Bronze Age domestic pottery. The Lismullin us back to the steps of the GPO. In an interview
enclosure appears to represent a single phase of with the BBC in March 2008, the Nobel Laureate
construction and a relatively short period of use. Seamus Heaney said:‘If ever there was a place that
The choice of location was important. Just deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead
2.1km south-west – and within sight distance – generations from prehistoric times up to historic
of the Hill of Tara, the enclosure was also in the times up to completely recently – it was Tara.’
vicinity of Rath Lugh, Rathmiles, Raith Loegaire Now that the Celtic Tiger has come to the end
and Ringlestown Rath, which were all defensive of the road, there are signs that we may be about
outposts in the Tara hinterland in the final few to discover the invisible people after all. Prof. Ian
centuries BC and early few centuries AD. The Armit of Bradford University’s research project,
enclosure occupied a discreet, sheltered position, Remodelling the Irish Iron Age, aims to synthesise
with the surrounding higher ground providing a the evidence from commercially-funded work.
natural amphitheatre. It is likely that a blocking By reassessing excavation reports and teasing
out the Iron Age data, the project team hope to
further READING  assimilate this evidence into a wider archaeo-
Roads, Rediscovery and Research, Archaeology and logical narrative, finally filling the void in our
the National Roads Authority Monograph Series No. 5. understanding. Those of us formerly employed
ISBN 978-0954595562. on the front line of the Celtic Tiger wish them
Creative Minds, Archaeology and the National Roads the best of luck. C a
Authority Monograph Series No. 7. ISBN 978-
0956418029.
Aiden O’Connell, ‘The elusive Iron Age: a rare and exciting Coming next month:
site type is uncovered at Lismullen, Co. Meath’. 2007. Saints and Sinners: fields of conflict in
Seanda: NRA Archaeology Magazine 2, pp52–54. later Medieval Ireland.

| Issue 249 www.archaeology.co.uk | current archaeology 35

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