Programme

9:00-9:30 Registration


9:30-9:40 Introduction and welcome


Session One: Remembering early modern Ireland


9:40-10:00 What’s in a Ruin? Memory and identity in a Fortified House, Inniscarra, Co. Cork

Kieran McCarthy, Department of Geography, UCC


10:00-10:20 Salterstown: remembering the ‘Second Plantation’ and beyond

Shannon M. Kennedy , Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield


10:20-10:40 Tea & Coffee


Session Two: Colonial Processes


10:40-11:00 The Books of Survey and Distribution: Confiscation and subjugation in rural east Clare Terri Shoesmith, Department of History, NUI, Galway


11:00-11:20 The Archaeology of the Munster Plantation: Landscape, Memory and History Joe Nunan, Department of Archaeology, UCC


11:20-11:40 Geophysical and topographical mapping of a seventeenth century blast furnace in Ballyvannan, East Clare Paul Rondelez, Department of Archaeology, UCC

11:40-11:55 Discussion

11:55-12:15 Tea & Coffee


Session Three: Cultural frontiers


12:15-12:35 The Ulster coarse pottery assemblage from the high-status Gaelic crannog at Island MacHugh, Co. Tyrone Colleen O’Hara, Department of Archaeology, NUI, Galway

12:35-12:55 Cultural frontiers in 16th century Ireland and Transylvania Teodora Pascal, Department of History, NUI, Galway

12:55-13:15 The Death of the Tower House: evidence for the decline of trade at tower houses Vicky McAlister, Department of History, TCD

13:15-13:35 English Garrisons and Irish Towns during the Elizabethan Conquest, 1558 – 1603 Kieran Hoare, Department of History, NUI, Galway

13:35-13:50 Discussion

13:50- 15:20 Lunch


Session Four: After the conquest


15:20-15:40 A Question of Faith. Studying Mass Rock Sites in Ireland Hilary Bishop, Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool


15:40-16:10 Chapel villages and estate towns: the role of medieval ecclesiastical buildings in settlement development

1700-1900 Caroline McGee and Niamh Nic Ghabhann, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, TCD


16:10-16:30 The Archaeology of Identity: A case study of demesnes in north County Cork Jane Hurley, Department of Archaeology, UCC


16:30-16:50 '"Collusion at Morristown Lattin": A case study of the Lattin family, 1722-26.' Emma Lyons, School of History & Archives, UCD


16:50-17:10 “Bridewell, Smithfield and Bully’s Acre – names in the Irish built environment copied due to a common function” Paul Tempan, Irish and Celtic Studies, Queens University Belfast

17:10-17:15 Discussion

SOCIAL TBA

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Conference logistics

We are very happy to be able to announce that a buffet will be held in the Townhouse at 7.30 pm as part of our upcoming conference. This will offer delegates and speakers a chance to eat, mingle and discuss all the new ideas circulating after such a thought provoking day. This is included in the conference fee. Below is a map of the conference venues and various public transport hubs.


View 'People, places and memory' in a larger map

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Key-note speaker: Dr. Audrey Horning

We are happy and honoured to announce that Dr. Audrey Horning, , Reader in Historical Archaeology, University of Leicester, will be delivering the key-note address at the forthcoming 'People, places & memory' conference, 27th of August.

Dr. Horning's address will develop a number of themes and debates identified by the various speakers during the course of the day. It will take place at 6pm after a short wine reception.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Abstracts

Session One: Remembering early modern Ireland

What’s in a Ruin? Memory and identity in a Fortified House, Inniscarra, Co. Cork
Kieran McCarthy, Department of Geography, UCC

This paper investigates the question of the role of a seventeenth century ruinous fortified house (in Inniscarra, Co. Cork) in the production of memory in the landscape. Scholars of collective memory argue that remembering is a thoroughly social and political process, a realm of contestation and controversy. The past is constantly selected, filtered and restructured in terms set by the questions and necessities of the present. Hence within each landscape, elements such as ruins raises questions about the political aesthetics and organisational forms utilised in its construction, and about the inclusions and exclusions- of social groups and modes of memory, which each ruins permits.

Connecting the nature of ruins to the collective memory debate provides further opportunities and fuel to the analysis of landscape formation- that the countryside is not only an ancient place of archaeological sites but is also throbbing with messages about how the past is passed down. That the landscape serves as a vast repository of symbolism, iconography and ideology all combining to form local identity structures.

Ruins tend to comprise the human-made and the nature-made and have their own time, place, space, life and lives. The diverse rates of decay mean that some spaces and objects are erased whilst others remain. That creates a particularly dense and disorganised `temporal collage' of memory. Hence memory is narrated and conceived as an unfolding succession of stories. The stories produce a plenitude of fragmented stories, omitted memories, fantasies and inexplicable objects. This paper explores those ideas in the context of a seventeenth century fortified house ruin at Ardrum, Inniscarra, Co. Cork.

Salterstown: remembering the ‘Second Plantation’ and beyond
Shannon M. Kennedy – Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield

The settlement at Salterstown, Co. Londonderry is sometimes conflated with Salterstown Castle and thus conceived of as an exclusively Ulster Plantation-era settlement wherein precise dating is possible as a result of abandonment and destruction resulting from the violence of 1641. Indeed, even the Heritage and Environment Service of Northern Ireland lists Orloff Millers summary of Salterstown wherein he characterises it as an ‘English plantation village… destroyed in 1641’ and such an attitude about the site threatens to influence scholarly approaches or attitudes to this village and its data. Archaeological evidence from the site, however, not only disproves this version of events, but calls into question how this place and its identity have been constructed in narrative and memory. This paper re-evaluates evidence unearthed by Orloff Miller’s excavations in the late 1980s, such as a later seventeenth-century footwear, eighteenth-century clothing fasteners, and nineteenth-century decorated ceramic pipes. In analysing these artefacts of domestic life this study takes into account current theoretical developments including the growing consideration for the power of memory in influencing or creating ideas of people and places that often stand counter to scholarly fact. The need to recognise the importance of these constructed memories while continuing to be academically rigorous is at the core of this paper’s attempt to elucidate the small but evocative archaeological evidence from phases of settlement in and around Salterstown in the later seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries.

Session Two: Colonial Processes

The Books of Survey and Distribution: Confiscation and subjugation in rural east Clare
Terri Shoesmith, Department of History, NUI, Galway

The Books of Survey and Distribution are a record of social change and landscape in the wake of the 1641 uprising. They can be said to function as a powerful memory of a time of dramatic upheaval. Some interpretations of history have suggested that Gaelic society was completely subjugated during this period, but more recently historians, geographers and other social scientists have begun to ask how complete was this ‘subjugation’? Using evidence in the BSD and other sources, this paper will examine the evidence in the Barony of Tulla and, using the theories developed by Dr. Patrick Nugent et.al., will explore some contestations of power in a rural landscape which was remote from the core areas of Thomond control. Focussing on the parishes of Feakle and Tulla in the peripheral region of the Barony, it will reflect on the fate of the Irish farmers and cottiers and will consider some of the ways in which they sought to negotiate their identity in the changed society of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Geophysical and topographical mapping of a seventeenth century blast furnace in Ballyvannan, East Clare

The Archaeology of the Munster Plantation: Landscape, Memory and History
Joe Nunan, Department of Archaeology, UCC

At the end of the sixteenth century, Munster experienced a rapid transformation in its social, economic, cultural, and political development. The apparatus central to and driving this change was the English settler, religion and the English state. Late sixteenth and seventeenth century plantation society can be seen as laying the foundation politically, economically and ideologically for the formation of modernity within the Munster region. The connection between space, place, identity and memory facilitated the way the Irish and New English settler perceived the world they inhabited in early post-medieval Munster.

Ongoing post-graduate research by Joe Nunan will contribute to further archaeological understanding of the Munster Plantation through an analysis of the evolving landscape controls within the region and an examination of Undertaker identity. A multidisciplinary approach will be taken using, archaeological, historical, and cartographic evidence to piece together as comprehensively a picture of the complex nature of colonial settlement in Munster.

This methodology will facilitate an examination of the various dynamics at play in that landscape, and will allow for a more appropriate understanding of the archaeological memory of the people and places within the Munster Plantation region during the period 1580-1680.

Geophysical and topographical mapping of a seventeenth century blast furnace in Ballyvannan, East Clare

Paul Rondelez, Department of Archaeology, UCC

One of the advantages that drew the English planters to Ireland, was the availability of cheap wood. This wood was exported as pipestaves and planks, but also transformed locally into charcoal. It was especially the growing English iron industry that would take advantage of this fuel supply.

East Clare was one of the regions were enough oak woods survived to justify the introduction of blast furnaces and related ironworks, both before and after the Cromwellian wars.

Earlier this year, one of these furnaces at Ballyvannan near Tuamgraney, surviving as a ruine surrounded by a spoilheap, was geophysically investigated with the help of a fluxgate gradiometer. At the same time a detailed topographical survey was carried out of the ruine, the spoilheap and a nearby charcoal manufacturing area.

The main research question was if the obvious smelting (furnace and blast furnace slag) was accompanied by further iron processing (fining or forging). Another unknown concerned the water supply needed for this water powered furnace; today only small rivulets occur in the vicinity of the smelting area.

Although not conclusive, it seems likely there was no further processing at this location, which would imply that either cast iron objects were produced here or that the further working of the (pig) iron occurred elsewhere. The water was probably diverted from a large stream higher up and reached the furnace from the top of a slope just next to it. This would suggest the use of an overshot water wheel for driving the bellows. Finally, the survival of both one internal and one external wall face, permitted a tentative reconstruction of the furnace, based on the assumption it was square in plan and symmetrical in construction.

Session Three: Cultural frontiers

The Ulster coarse pottery assemblage from the high-status Gaelic crannog at Island MacHugh, Co. Tyrone
Colleen O’Hara, Department of Archaeology, NUI, Galway

As part of my thesis investigating the Cultural contexts of Ulster coarse pottery I have been looking at several crannog sites on which the pottery has been found. Lakeside settlements were in use from as early as the Mesolithic period, such as Ballinderry, Co. Offaly. Crannogs warrant a good deal of exploration in terms of their cultural and contextual connection with this pottery form. The coarse pottery found on crannog sites has traditionally been thought of as late medieval in context, however earlier examples do exist in the collections and so the chronology of the use of Ulster coarse pottery on crannogs can be assumed to span from its earliest incarnations in the late 12th-early 13th centuries up until it falls out of use almost contemporaneously with the crannogs themselves in the 17th century.

Island MacHugh is located on Lough Catherine, Co. Tyrone, as one of my main case study sites will be explored during this seminar. Lough Catherine is roughly 2km long and lies to the south-east of Newtownstewart, not far from the modern Baronscourt road. Evidence shows that the lake dwelling at Island McHugh in Co. Tyrone was the site of a habitation settlement from as early as the Neolithic period and remained in use up until the late 16th century. This site was used from the Neolithic period until the early modern period when it was confiscated from the O’Neill’s of Tir-Eoghan during the Ulster plantations. Island MacHugh is noteworthy for the vast quantity of mid to late medieval finds made here during excavations in the 1940s carried out by Oliver Davies. Over 1200 sherds of this pottery type were unearthed here during excavations. I aim to demonstrate how this pottery was used on the site over the course of its period of use from c.1200 – c.1650. Taking into account the excavation reports compiled by both Davies and later Ivens, as well as Cormac McSparrons analysis of Ulster coarse pottery and documentary evidence of Island MacHugh as a functioning residence during the later medieval and Early modern periods, an informed view both of the functions of the crannog and the use of the pottery within the framework of crannog life can be established.

Cultural frontiers in 16th century Ireland and Transylvania
Teodora Pascal, Department of History, NUI, Galway

This study examines the development of cultural frontier in the second half of the 16th century in Europe, by means of comparative study between Ireland and Transylvania. It focuses on two different regions with different cultures, but with many structural similarities. For instance one similarity would be that the reformed beliefs were not assimilated by Irish or the Romanians in Transylvania, but when relating to language the Irish adopted English while the Romanians continued to speak their own language.
I analyze the analogies and distinctions between Anglo-Gaelic frontiers and the Transylvanian-Hapsburg-Ottoman borderlands by focusing on aspects of 16th century politics, religion, culture and everyday life. In doing so, I aim to bring my contribution to the existing scholarship on the topic of borderlands and frontiers in early modern Europe and to promote a richer understanding of Transylvanian and Irish historical past.
The first part of my study focuses on territorial changes and the resulting transformations of the two political frontiers. It is based on maps and other primary sources, such as the Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Ireland, The Inchiquin manuscripts, The manuscript sources of Irish civilisation on the Irish side. As far as Transylvania is concerned my research so far has been based on the edited Hurmuzaki collection as well as on unedited document collections held in Mures County Archives, the Mures County Museum, and the Teleki Library.
This presentation is concentrating on the preliminary observations drawn from the first part of the study, political frontiers.

The Death of the Tower House: evidence for the decline of trade at tower houses

Vicky McAlister, Department of History, TCD

This paper will determine to what extent changes in trading activity influenced the abandonment of the Irish tower house through the first half of the seventeenth century using County Down as a case study. The paper will draw from historical sources but will emphasise the role of archaeology in determining this shift.

In the late medieval period some of the County Down tower houses seem to have served as lordly economic bases, either through use as trading posts within a larger trade network or in an ‘urban’ port settlement. This paper suggests that with the devastation caused by the Tudor Conquest, followed by the gradual return of powerful government afterwards and with plantation, this individual economic demand on tower houses was altered. This paper argues that changes in exports as a result of these events were not catered for within the tower house’s function and location. It is similarly asserted that these economic changes account for the movement of trading activity to new ports and therefore away from the medieval ports and the networks accounting for tower house distribution.

English Garrisons and Irish Towns during the Elizabethan Conquest, 1558 – 1603
Kieran Hoare, Department of History, NUI, Galway

This paper will examine the interaction between English soldiers who were garrisoned in the towns of Galway, Limerick and Cork in the later sixteenth century and the townspeople of those towns. Seen at the time as "the anchor-sheets of the state", garrisons of English soldiers from the 1560s in these towns raised questions of public order, taxation and identity. Also, given the fact that the hinterlands of these towns experienced rebellion at various times they became targets for raids, as well as suffering from the economic dislocation caused by the English response. The paper will end with a very brief overview of the recusancy revolt of 1603 in the towns, examining it as a precursor to the wars of religion which shook Ireland in the seventeenth century.

Session Four: After the conquest

A Question of Faith. Studying Mass Rock Sites in IrelandAlign CenterHilary Bishop, Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool

As locations of a distinctively Catholic faith, mass rocks are important historical, ritual and counter-cultural sites which present a tangible connection to Ireland’s rich heritage for contemporary society. My multi-disciplinary research aims to assess the geographical distribution of mass rock sites in Ireland and test current academic hypotheses about their nature, use and significance in the retention of Catholic identity and practice before, during and after the Penal era.

Despite recent re-interpretations that have questioned the severity and consistent application of the Penal Laws, academics have failed to address their very distinctive and crucial spatial and temporal historical geography. Although much has been written about the Penal era, an island wide historiographical survey of mass rock sites, that explains the many factors informing their distinctly uneven distribution, has not yet been undertaken. One of my key aims is to question the validity and necessity of mass rocks as alternative places of Catholic worship during the Penal era and to assess whether many may in fact belong to the earlier Cromwellian period.

The mythology surrounding mass rocks tends to symbolise the worst excesses of the Penal Laws yet initial research, concerning the actual locations of such sites, indicates that few conform to the mythical secluded, upland sanctuaries depicted in early and mid-twentieth century history textbooks and more recently on ‘republican’ murals.

Research is currently underway in counties Cork and Tyrone. Given the location and historical environment of the diocese of Clogher in mid Ulster one would expect that its experience of the Penal laws would be significantly different to that of the diocese of Cork and Ross in the south west. In terms of both active and passive zones of Catholicism and wealth, these areas are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Chapel villages and estate towns: the role of medieval ecclesiastical buildings in settlement development 1700-1900
Caroline McGee and Niamh Nic Ghabhann, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, TCD

Our proposal is based on research from the IRCHSS project ‘Reconstructions of the Gothic Past’ based in Trinity College Dublin.
The aim of this multi-strand project is to explore the ways in which medieval buildings in Ireland have been adapted, and in some cases, completely transformed in response to social and cultural demands.

This joint presentation will examine the development of towns and villages in Ireland, and in particular the position of the medieval ecclesiastical building. The relevance of these buildings to the development of settlement patterns in Munster in the early modern period will be illustrated through a comparison of the neighbouring towns of Kilmallock, county Limerick and Charleville, county Cork.

Firstly, Niamh NicGhabhann will outline the importance of the medieval ecclesiastical building as an important site of memory for different groups in society, from the 17th century to the mid 19th century. The concept of the ‘chapel village’ as defined by Kevin Whelan in his 1983 article on the Catholic village in early modern Ireland will form the starting point for this discussion. Through an examination of the medieval ecclesiastical sites in Co. Limerick, and of the shifting and changing nature of towns and villages of that area, a more complete picture of the symbolic or cultural value of these buildings to groups in society can be gained.

Secondly, Caroline McGee will present a focused case study of Charleville that will demonstrate how subsequent interpretations of medieval ecclesiastical complexes provided a model for the development of early modern townscapes. A key point in this discussion is the position of the chapel as the focus of the overall town plan allowed a nucleus of buildings to develop around it.

Overall this presentation will provide a broad exploration of the connections between people, places and memory in early modern Munster.

The Archaeology of Identity: A case study of demesnes in north County Cork
Jane Hurley, Department of Archaeology, UCCBold

As part of my MPhil research I looked at the social archaeology of demesne landscapes, with a focus on one particular region in Ireland, north county Cork. Demesnes were landscapes that belonged to the protestant ascendancy of Ireland, and they were at their most prevalent during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As features created by the landed classes they have been seen as being part of an elite study, and have not been looked at within archaeology in Ireland because of this association with a perceived and ‘colonial’ past. There is a lot of literature out there on country houses and estates, but these are not from an archaeological perspective, and so tend to only give part of the picture. It could be argued that it has not been looked at within archaeology, because of a nationalist mindset, which seems to determine what is appropriate to commemorate and what is not. Many would see demesnes as being part of a colonial landscape, and thus of no interest. But they are as much a part of the past and archaeology of Ireland, as any other feature.

Demesnes are features within the Irish landscape with numerous identifying features. And it is these features as well as the landscape as a whole that provide an insight to the identity of those who created them. The changes in the national identity and self-identity of the protestant ascendancy can be seen through the changes that they made to their own personal spaces, their houses and demesnes. This paper will discuss these issues in reference to case study demesnes in north Cork.

'"Collusion at Morristown Lattin": A case study of the Lattin family, 1722-26.'
Emma Lyons, School of History and Archives, UCD

This paper will examine the methods adopted by an Irish Catholic family in eighteenth-century Ireland in a bid to retain their ancestral home despite the existence of the Penal Laws. Amongst the sources that will be analysed are statutes, legal documents and family correspondences.
The Penal Laws were a series of statutes enforced by a Protestant administration upon Catholics, the largest constituent of the Irish population, and targeted almost every area of Catholic life during the eighteenth century: property, occupation, education, religious practice and family life. For example, the statutes made it illegal for Catholics to buy or sell land, or to hold leases for longer than thirty one years.1 This paper will focus upon the means by which Catholics succeeded in continuing in their everyday lives, both retaining their property as well as purchasing land, despite the existence of statutes which rendered such actions illegal.

By examining the experience of the Lattins from county Kildare, a family who settled in the area during the reign of King John I, it will be possible to witness some of the methods employed by the family, not only to ensure they retained their ancestral home and property, but also to increase their landholding capacity during the eighteenth century. Their use of collusive methods,2 which required the co-operation of a ‘friendly’ Protestant willing to purchase and hold land in trust for them, allowed the Lattins to successfully circumvent the Penal Laws’ aims regarding Catholic landowners and to remain in their family home. By detailing one specific case of collusion involving the Lattins of county Kildare, the family’s links to their locality and their determination to retain their property in that area will be observed.


1 2 Anne, c. 6, s. 6, in Statutes at Large Passed in Parliament held in Ireland from the year of Edward II, A.D. 1310 to the twenty-sixth of George III, A.D. 1786 Inclusive 20 vols. (Dublin, 1763-1801), iv, pp 12-31.

2 Collusion in this case is defined as a secret agreement between two or more parties for fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purposes.

Bridewell, Smithfield and Bully’s Acre —names in the Irish built environment copied due to a common function

Paul Tempan, Department of Irish and Celtic Studies, Queen's University Belfast

The study of place-names is an inherently multi-disciplinary activity which draws on and speaks to many other domains of research. This paper examines a category of names which can be termed ‘copied names’, and which are of particular relevance to historians, archaeologists and geographers, as they tend to refer to notable buildings and public spaces. What connects them is neither their (literal) meaning nor their linguistic origin, but rather the manner in which they are copied from a site with a particular function, status or association to other sites which share, or have pretensions to sharing the same function, status or association. The name Smithfield was applied to markets in Dublin and Belfast simply because these places had an equivalent function to the meat-market of the same name in London, without regard to the derivation from Old English smēðe feld, ‘smooth field’. Owing to the divorce of etymology from ‘functional meaning’, this class of names has been prone to certain types of misunderstanding, both by toponymists and scholars of other disciplines. Some guidelines for dealing with copied names will be suggested, based on Irish models of good practice. This research was prompted by the work of Gary Dempsey on burial grounds named Bully’s Acre for a Master’s dissertation at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Getting to/from Galway...

To Ireland...
Galway city airport
Aer Arann (http://www.aerarann.com/) fly from London Luton and Manchester to Galway city airport. The airport is about 10km outside the city and it is well serviced by taxis and public transport.

Knock airport
Ryanair (http://www.ryanair.com/en) and Aer lingus (http://www.aerlingus.com/) both fly to Knock airport. Bus Eireann (http://www.buseireann.ie/) links knock with Galway.

Shannon airport
Ryanair (http://www.ryanair.com/en) fly from a number of U.K. airports to Shannon. Both Bus Eireann and Citylink (http://www.citylink.ie/) link Shannon airport with Galway city.

Within Ireland...
By Bus
Bus Eireann, Citylink and Go-bus (http://www.gobus.ie/) link Dublin with Galway. Cork to Galway is also serviced by Bus Eireann and Citylink. The private companies offer highly competitive rates.

By Train
Iarnrod Eireann (http://www.irishrail.ie/home/) offers services from Dublin to Galway and now from Cork to Galway. Webfares start at €10.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Accommodation in Galway

There is a wide selection of accommodation available in Galway from inexpensive hostels to hotels. August is peak season so it is advisable to book accommodation in advance. Accommodation is also available on campus at the university.

Budget Hostels

Bed and Breakfasts

Hotels

Please contact us if you need help finding somewhere to stay in Galway.

Call for papers

'People, places and memory: interdisciplinary studies in early modern Ireland' is an upcoming inter-disciplinary conference for post-graduate students researching early modern Ireland.

The conference is being hosted by the School of Archaeology and Geography, National University of Ireland, Galway and is supported by the Irish Post-Medieval Archaeological Group (IPMAG). It will take place on the 27th of August 2010 in the Mooore Institute, NUI Galway. It is hoped that the one day event will provide a supportive environment in which post-graduate students can present their research and make fruitful contacts with others working outside of their own disciplines. This is the first year the conference is being held, it is hoped that with your support it will set a president and continue into the future.

The theme of the conference is 'people, places and memory: interdisciplinary studies in early modern Ireland'. Each paper should be 20 minutes long and abstracts, of no more than 300 words, should be submitted to earlymodernirelandconference@gmail.com by Friday the 30th of April, 2010. We are also happy to take general inquiries from delegates via this contact. Additional information is available at http://www.earlymodernirelandconference.blogspot.com.