A History of Settlement in Ireland

Terry Barry

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780415518611
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134674626
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

A History of Settlement in Ireland provides a stimulating and thought-provoking overview of the settlement history of Ireland from prehistory to the present day. Particular attention is paid to the issues of settlement change and distribution within the contexts of:
* environment
* demography
* culture.
The collection goes further by setting the agenda for future research in this rapidly expanding area of academic interest.
This volume will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the archaeology, history and social geography of Ireland.

1
READING A LANDSCAPE MANUSCRIPT

A review of progress in prehistoric settlement studies in Ireland

Gabriel Cooney

Introduction

Looking back from the end of the millennium to commemorate the foundation of the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement in 1969, it is appropriate to review Irish prehistoric settlement studies using that year as a baseline. In many ways 1969 was a watershed which marked the beginning of a major phase of activity in Irish prehistoric studies which still continues. That year saw the publication in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology of review articles on the Neolithic¹ and the Earlier Bronze Age² in the north of Ireland, followed by Harbison’s³ review of the Earlier Bronze Age in Ireland and Woodman’s⁴ discussion of settlement in the Irish Mesolithic. The following decades have seen major advances in prehistoric studies, both in terms of the understanding of the pattern of settlement within major periods during Irish prehistory and the diachronic changes in settlement in particular regions.

During the period under review five major texts dealing with Irish prehistory⁵ have been published. Mallory and McNeill’s ⁶ consideration of the prehistory of Ulster as part of a wider treatment of the archaeology of the northern part of the island is also an important general discussion. Important period-based reviews have appeared covering the Mesolithic;⁷ the Bronze Age⁸ and the Iron Age.⁹ Comparing all these texts it is clear that the interpretation of prehistoric settlement is influenced by both changes in our interpretative approaches and the accumulation of new material. Excavation, fieldwork and chance discovery have continued to increase the database with which archaeologists work. One indicator of the increase in archaeological work is that the number of excavations has jumped from 36 carried out in 1971 to more than 330 in 1995¹⁰ with the probability that this trend will continue (but it should be noted that a major component of this increase is due to the excavation of historic sites). An important trend in the last thirty years has been the systematisation of data collection. In this context the gathering pace of archaeological heritage inventory work has been of fundamental importance. At the time of writing thirteen county inventories have been produced by the Archaeological Survey of Ireland, the Heritage Service (for Carlow, Cavan, Cork – three volumes, Galway (West), Laois, Louth, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Wicklow and Wexford). In addition a number of detailed county or area archaeological surveys have appeared.¹¹

A feature of these inventory and survey volumes has been the utilisation of the aerial photographic record to bring into the archaeological record many additional low-visibility sites.¹² The broader recognition of the importance of low-visibility archaeology has been an important development. This can be seen for example in the results of pipeline¹³ and field-walking surveys.¹⁴ The need to deploy a range of dedicated techniques to identify low-visibility archaeology has meant, for example, that geophysical survey has become a standard part of archaeological practice. Alongside the increasing impact of rescue archaeology there have been a number of important research initiatives, most notably the Discovery Programme, set up in 1991 and in 1996 established as a company funded by the state through the Heritage Council to carry out archaeological research. The Discovery Programme chose the problems of later prehistoric settlement as the focus of the first set of research programmes.¹⁵ The Discovery Programme has also been to the forefront in the development of new approaches such as the interpretation of geophysical survey data¹⁶ and the use of geographical information systems as part of a regional research framework.¹⁷ Looking at these trends collectively one major effect has been to redress the emphasis on standing, monumental archaeology with a focus on the need also to recover low-visibility archaeology. This has direct implications for settlement studies specifically because so many prehistoric domestic structures were constructed of perishable materials and, more broadly, because it lessens the bias in the archaeological record.

In a broad sense then there have been major advances in Irish prehistoric settlement studies since the 1960s, as by definition all of the work outlined above increases our knowledge of settlement in Ireland during prehistory. The chronological basis of Irish prehistory has been greatly improved through radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology, particularly the dedicated programmes of dating site types.¹⁸ These dating techniques make it possible to sub-divide periods such as the Neolithic¹⁹ and the Bronze Age²⁰ on the basis of radiocarbon dates. This is a important advance in that we are no longer reliant on the archaeological data itself as a source of dating and it has provided an independent dating framework within which to look at social and cultural developments. However, it would have to be said that comparatively less attention has been paid to understanding the nature and extent of prehistoric settlement or to the dynamic processes underlying the ways in which settlement patterns developed over time. It would appear that the ability to identify environmental marker dates in the dendrochronological record has led to the assumption that these would automatically evoke a human response²¹ and to the seductive mirage that we can see social changes as simple one-off events rather than processes taking place through time. There has been much concern with documenting the archaeological record as opposed to considering how effectively this record can be used to reconstruct settlement patterns.²² This attitude may be traced to a number of factors such as a concern with documenting a threatened record, the traditional cultural-historical viewpoint that archaeological theory and data can be separated and the view that archaeological evidence may have limited potential for the analysis of settlement in any detailed way. Of course we must be critically aware of the limitations of the archaeological record, but that record has in many instances been treated at face value without any detailed consideration of the formative and the post-depositional factors that may have influenced and distorted its present form.²³ For example, there has been little discussion of the direct link between the extent and nature of archaeological fieldwork and the quality and form of archaeological data that it creates. Also, with few exceptions, there has been little regard for the theoretical debates and advances that have taken place in the field of prehistoric studies since the late 1960s.²⁴ In overview, the ‘New’ or processual archaeology of the 1970s and 1980s has had an influence primarily through the application of new techniques and the post-processual archaeology that developed in the 1980s with its many strands is only now beginning to have a wider influence in Ireland. In terms of the reluctance of a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Reading a Landscape Manuscript: A review of progress in prehistoric settlement studies in Ireland
• 2. Settlement in Early Ireland: A review
• 3. Early Christian Ireland: Settlement and environment
• 4. Rural Settlement in Medieval Ireland: A review
• 5. Urbanisation in Ireland During the High Middle Ages, c.1100 tO c.1350: Settlement and environment
• 6. Plantation Ireland: A review of settlement history
• 7. Ireland a Colony: Settlement implications of the revolution in military-administrative, urban and ecclesiastical structures, c. 1550 to c.1730
• 8. Settlement and Society in Eighteenth-Century Ireland
• 9. Trends in Nineteenth‒ and Twentieth‒Century Settlement
• 10. Perspectives on Irish Settlement Studies
• Bibliography
• Index