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| 29 Apr 2008 04:05:12 pm |
 arigna's train |
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a couple of pictures of the old steam train that went up to the mine at Arigna.
Quote : IMAGE RESIZED BY ADMIN
Quote : IMAGE RESIZED BY ADMIN |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David |  Comments[159] |  Trackbacks [0] |
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| 16 Apr 2008 04:22:49 pm |
| video's |
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Uploaded to youtube are videos showing the creevelea ironworks, the mine on King's mountain, neolithic and medieval walls in the Cavan Burren, working at the Arigna coal mine and the Arigna train.
Video's can be seen by going to: www.youtube.com/daithi4u |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David | Comments[258] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 13 Mar 2008 02:29:23 pm |
| The Cavan Burren |
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The Cavan Burren
Situated about 4 kilometres south of Blacklion, County Cavan lies the townland of Burren, it is a mountainous limestone area similar to the more famous Burren in County Clare. Burren comes from Gaelic word 'Boireann' meaning stony place. In the 1950s the area was completely planted with conifer forest. Recently there have been a number of surveys carried out in the Burren and Marlbank areas. One of these surveys was carried out by Gaby Burns and Jim Nolan, two school teachers from Enniskillen County Fermanagh. Gaby and Jim made many interesting discoveries during there survey and have produced an excellent booklet (recommended) about the Cavan Burren area, it is available at the Blacklion Market House Tourist office. There is also a well signposted megalithic trail through the forest. Along the walking trail are an amazing variety of megalithic tombs, glacial erratics, hut sites, newly discovered rock art and even a promontory fort.
The Giants Grave
Approached from a track running South from Tullygobban Lough, this wedge-tomb is a fine, large and well-preserved example, with a gallery over 7 metres long divided by a high septal slab into a long portico and a large main chamber. The gallery is covered by 5 roofstones, 3 of which cover the main chamber, and one of which has chock-stones. The front capstone has a series of depressions which may be manmade cup-marks. Two of the front orthostats of the façade lean together to form a triangular entrance to the antechamber. The septal slab has a gap at the bottom of the North end. |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David | Comments[50] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 13 Mar 2008 12:34:34 pm |
| Carrowmore |
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Carrowmore
The megaliths of Carrowmore, located five kilometers south-west of Sligo town are at the heart of the Cúil Irra peninsula and are one of the greatest megalithic complexes of ancient Ireland. Here are the remains of the one of the oldest and largest collections of Stone Age monuments in Western Europe.
Twenty-seven monuments remain today, in varying states of preservation. The remains of at least 65 monuments are known, though it was thought by earlier researchers that there might have been up to 120 monuments at Carrowmore. The sites were extensively damaged in the early years of the nineteenth century by land clearance and quarrying.
The Office of Public Works currently manages the site, and there is a small visitor centre and information display, which is open from May to September with a cover charge.
The Hill of Kesh
The Hill of Kesh rises from the Plain of Corann at the western extreme of the Bricklieve Mountains in South County Sligo. The Mountain has been known throughout history and pre-history as a place of magic and wonder.
One of the older tales about the Mountain is found in the Dindshenchas collection. This story describes how a woman, Deirdre, of the Túatha Dé Danann was magically transformed into a sow when she ate some enchanted acorns. The sow was known as Cael Ceis, and she went on a rampage across the country destroying lives and property. The Hunters of Connaught, who could not subdue her, pursued her and she slew many of them.
Finally Corann, who was the Harper of Dain Ceacht and resided at Newgrange put the sow to sleep with his skilful harping which we are told could 'charm the birds down out of the bushes or up out of the furrows the young peas'. The carcass of Cael Ceis then became the mountain.
The meaning of Ceis is debatable and has been translated as The Small Bass Harp of Corann or The Wicker Roadway of Corann. Since Corann was said to be the best harper of the Dagda's household, the musical translation makes sense. The line of caves in the cliffs certainly brings music and wind instruments to mind.
It is possible that the musical associations are a folk memory of the chanting, horns, harps, drums and other instruments that probably sounded from the top of the mountain and the caves during the ancient festival celebrations. |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David | Comments[52] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 13 Mar 2008 12:33:35 pm |
| Teampull, Glencar. |
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Teampull, Glencar.
Extract from the Folklore archive
“There is a very historical spot in it (Glencar) called Teampull. It is supposed that in penal times Catholics went to worship God in this cave, as they would not be allowed to worship in any Catholic church. Others say that in penal times priests hid themselves in this cave. It is a very dangerous place. Teampull means a church. It is about a mile and a half north of Glencar National School. It is a deep bottomless cave”.
In September 1935 a group of three women and two men from Sligo explored the cave. While down in the cave one of the women, a miss Tighe, was killed when she fell into a deep pit. Stories of how her body was recovered and the daring exploits of the local people and the garda, Sergeant Scott from Kiltyclogher, fill the folklore archive from the local region.
The site is a swally hole with two entrances to the cave system. The action of erosion has created a natural amphitheatre with the remains of a stack cutting the area into two parts. In the sheerest part of this swally hole, water continues its cutting action. However the large rocks and what would have been a bridge to the stack have been tossed into this area to prevent easy access and hopefully further accidents. A low stone wall around the top of the swally hole acts to delineate its presence. |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David | Comments[50] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 13 Mar 2008 12:25:50 pm |
| Creevykeel Court Cairn, Co. Sligo |
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Creevykeel Court Cairn, Co. Sligo
Description
Creevykeel Court Cairn consists of a wedge-shaped cairn, dating from between 3500 and 2500 BC, with a burial chamber opening directly opposite the entrance to the central court. The burial chamber is orientated longitudinally in relation to the cairn. The narrow end of the cairn shows two other graves. Creevykeel is classified as a full-court tomb and shows a low line of kerbstones around the exterior of the cairn, with larger orthostats lining the court. The burial chamber is approached through a massive lintelled doorway. The central court also shows an iron smelting area from the Early Christian period. The cairn is orientated north-west to south-east.
Stone: Sandstone (100%)
The cairn was built with a local sandstone. This is a light brown to cream, occasionally white and reddish, medium-grained sandstone sporadically displaying sedimentary structures and natural fractures. Sedimentary structures include graded and cross bedding, micaceous bedding planes and natural fractures.
The sandstone can be classified as an argillaceous sandstone. It consists of abundant detrital quartz and feldspar, and lesser amounts of muscovite embedded in an abundant argillaceous matrix with some ferruginous cement. The geological source for this material is the local Mullaghmore Sandstone formation of the Carboniferous Age. |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David | Comments[49] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 13 Mar 2008 12:24:54 pm |
| Baronies |
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boundaries.
Field Systems
Townlands
In Ireland there are over 60,000 townlands constituting the smallest recognised administrative divisions. They are areas of land of varying extent the smallest of which is Mill Tenement in Co. Armagh at around 1 acre. The largest is Sheskin in Co. Mayo with 7,012 acres. Their origins are various, relating to ancient clan lands, Anglo-Norman manors, plantation divisions, or later creations by the Ordinance Survey. Although formerly bases for the levying of tithes and land valuation, they no longer have any administrative significance.
Baronies
A barony is a territorial division of a county and is composed of a number of townlands. There are about 270 baronies in Ireland, the origins of which are obscure but in the 19th century they were thought to relate to former Gaelic lordships. As administrative units they served as basis for taxation, law enforcement, and general administration. They became largely redundant after 1891 but continue to have a presence in land title.
Baronial Constabulary
Constables were first appointed in the baronies and parishes of Ireland during the 14th century. Their duties were extensive, being military and civil as well as criminal. They were known as the ‘Barnies’ and remained the main agent of law enforcement in rural Ireland until 1822 when replaced by the Irish Constabulary.
Manors
Manors were an institution introduced into Ireland by the Anglo-Normans at the end of the 12th century that provided the framework within which a radically reorganised society came into existence. The social structure of manorial society was determined by land tenure and the rights and duties attached to it. Lordships were divided into ‘capital’ manors each with its castle and lands reserved as the lord’s demesne. The territory of each capital manor was in turn divided into smaller manors (fiefs) of between 3,000 to 5,000 acres held by tenants (knights) owing military service. At this primary level the manor was a tenurial structure to provide the means to defend and retain a recent conquest. The manor was also the institutional means of exploiting the agriculture and trade of the lordship. Fundamentally, lordship had to with the population rather than the territory of the manor. Every class was subject to the lord, and that relationship was expressed by the terms of tenure.
Ballyboe (baile biataigh)
This was a medieval territorial subdivision of a cantred of varying extent dependant on the quality of the soil and the nature of the terrain. The meaning of the name is “residence of a food provider”.
Cantred
Imported by the Anglo- Normans to describe a pre-conquest territorial unit and reflecting the political divisions existing at the time of the invasion. The cantreds provided the framework for the divisions of the county similar to the hundreds in England. Baronies are thought to derive from their medieval predecessor, the cantred.
Tuath
An old Irish word the primary meaning of which is ‘people’ or ‘community’, the word also has extended meanings into the territory of the people. The current trend is to translate tuath with the phrase ‘petty kingdom’ and to underline the fact that up to the 8th century the primary meaning of tuath was a population group of a petty kingdom where there were marked class distinctions, chiefs or royal families, and where the population did not have a shared ancestry.
Parishes
Parishes are territorial subdivisions with both ecclesiastical and civil significance. Coming into existence as part of the creation of a diocesan structure as a result of 12th century reforms, the first parishes were probably conterminous with the lands of Gaelic family groups. English settlement began before the pattern was complete and in colonised areas parishes became coincident with the new feudal tenureships. A divergence in parish structures began in the 16th century as a result of the split between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland. The established church (C of I) maintained the medieval parishes while the Roman Catholic created it’s own network. Both systems were later modified in response to social and demographic changes.
Civil Parishes were originally coincident with the medieval parishes, but they did not change along with their religious counterparts. Civil parishes served as the basis for surveys and in later years for censuses. They frequently transgresses county and barony borders and by the 19th century were essentially irrelevant to settlement patterns. There are 2,445 civil parishes in Ireland. (See parish maps for Co. Leitrim)
Counties
From the late 12th century as part of the Anglo-Norman colonisation the territorial divisions of counties (shires) began being created. The process of shiring involved the appointment by the crown of a sheriff in whom legal, military, and administrative powers were vested. Counties were and remain the most important unit of local government in Ireland. It was not until the abolition of the Ormond palatinate in 1716 that there became 32 centrally appointed shrievalties. These identities were further reinforced by the boundaries mapping in 1846.
In 1993 the county of Fingal was created from within Co. Dublin increasing the number of counties in Ireland for the first time sine the 1716 reforms.
Structural boundaries
Black Pig’s Dyke
Otherwise the ‘Worm Ditch’, a name given to a series of linear earthworks – banks, ditches, and timber palisades – situated on the border of Ulster. The Dyke dates to the Iron Age (c. 500-50 BC) and is commonly interpreted as an interrupted defensive system to impede cattle raiding.
English Pale
In 1495 a statue for “diches to be made aboute the Inglishe pale” was made under the Poynings parliament. Probably a transplanted idea from a similar defensive pale around Calais, the English Pale comprised of the medieval counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare where conditions were essentially English in most respects.
Source: The Oxford companion to Irish History, S.J. Connolly – ISBN: 0-19-211695-9
Field Boundaries |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David | Comments[69] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 13 Mar 2008 12:22:54 pm |
| ceremonial customs |
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ceremonial customs
Wakes
On the day of the “third birthday” – the day a person dies (1st – born, 2nd – baptised, 3rd – dies), the clock in the house is stopped and all the windows opened to let out the soul. The corpse is washed and dressed in white robes and laid out in the house or a barn on a table or on the deceased’s bed. 12 candles are lit and set in a bowl of sand. At this point all is ready for the wake to begin.
People believed that liveliness was important because crying over a corpse could give its soul a tormented life. Horse-play became the order of the night and there are over 200 wake games recorded. If things got too rowdy a lighted candle would be placed in a hand of the deceased, which according to tradition would cause everyone to fall asleep. Important too was the custom of snuff taking, of smoking and drinking. So opposed to this custom was the church, that from the 1660’s strict measures were imposed in an attempt to eradicate it.
To protect the body and the deceased’s soul a member of the family stayed with the corpse until burial, tradition demanding that the body should never be alone and unwatched. Mourners too going or coming from a wake should not be alone. Depending on the circumstances and the perceived time needed for the deceased to make the journey into the afterlife the keening (caoin) would then begin. Neighbours or professional keeners could be hired to sing the praises of the deceased. Mostly these were women liberally applied with whiskey and valued on the volume of their singing.
On the third day the corpse was placed in the coffin and taken for burial. Once the cortége left the house the furniture was turned upside down to ward off further deaths to the family. Women were banned from carrying the coffin or riding with the corpse and no-one wore a new garment. The route to the graveyard needed to take the coffin over water, householders along the funeral route pulled down the blinds, shut the shutters or drew the curtains until the cortége had passed.
It was believed that the last person buried in the graveyard became the servant of the others until the next burial. Likewise it was considered very unlucky to be the last person leaving the graveyard after the burial. In some areas each mourner laid a stone near where a man died, nobody ever disturbing the resulting mound.
Holy wells
From beside some wells – a “Sunday’s well” – people thought it lucky to observe a rising sun.
Wells associated with cures or particular saints were left with memento’s of some sort – rags, rosaries etc. “Playing rounds” was an accepted ritual at many holy wells. The pilgrims walked around the well in a sunwise direction, drank its waters and scraped a cross on a stone from the well. If the well dried up or was damaged it could, it was thought, transfer its powers to a nearby tree. |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David | Comments[74] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 13 Mar 2008 12:22:06 pm |
| Townlands in the Ecclesiastic Parish of Cloonclare |
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NSNF - Townlands in the Ecclesiastic Parish of Cloonclare
Key to Map of Cloonclare Parishes
1) Aghavanny 2) Aghlacon 3) Annagh 4) Ardmoneen
5) Ardvarney 6) Ballaghnabehy 7) Barrs East  Barrs West
9) Barr of Farrow 10) Black Mountain 11) Boleyboy 12) Briscloonagh
13) Brockagh Lower 14) Brockagh Upper 15) Bronagh 16) Camderry
17) Carraun 1 Carrigeengeare 19) Carrick Leitrim 20) Carrickrevagh
21) Cashelaveela 22) Cherrybrook 23) Cleggan 24) Cloonagh More
25) Cloonclare 26) Corracloona 27) Cornacloy 2 Cornaman
29) Cornastauk 30) Cornavannoge 31) Cuilties 32) Cullentragh
33) Donagh Beg 34) Donagh More 35) Druminshin 36) Glenboy
37) Glenkeel 3 Gortnalibbert 39) Gubnacurrafore 40) Killea
41) Killycloghan 42) Kilmakerrill 43) Kiltyclogher 44) Lacoon
45) Laghty 46) Laghty Barr 47) Lissinagroagh 4 Loughaphonta
49) Loughaphonta Barr 50) Loughros 51) Loughmacneane Upper 52) Lugasnaghta
53) Lughawagh 54) Lurgan 55) Manorhamilton 56) Meenagh
57) Meenkeeragh 5 Mennymore 59) Moheen Shinnagh 60) Moneenageer
61) Moneyduff 62) Moneenlom 63) Mullaun 64) Munnagashel
65) Munakill 66) Ramooney 67) Ross 6 Skreeny
69) Skreeny Little 70) Sradrine 71) Sraduffy 72) Sranagross
73) Sravrannies 74) Tawnyfeacle 75) Tawnylust 76) Tawnylust Bar
77) Tawnylust Bar Upper 7 Tawnymanus 79) Tawnyunshinagh 80) Tuckmillpark
81) Tullintaggart 82) Tullintloy 83) Tullyskeherny |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David | Comments[79] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 13 Mar 2008 12:18:25 pm |
| burial places |
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burial places
At various times during the Neolithic period, different burial rites were followed. Megalithic tombs, large burial monuments built of stone, were popular mainly in the northern half of the country where the commonest types of burial monuments are called Court Tombs, Portal Tombs, and Passage Tombs. In the southern half of the country single burial placed in cists beneath round cairns occur.
The recent development of spatial analysis aids the understanding of social and ritual organisation in prehistoric societies, in this case Irish megalithic 'tombs'. The Court cairns can be shown to have been succeeded by the Passage graves, and to have different spatial distributions. It is proposed that these changes can be related to changes in social organisation and in particular the ritual patterning of the society can be reconstructed from the spatial pattern of the megalithic `tombs' on the landscape today. From this it seems that a segmentary society changed into a chiefdom society in the middle to late neolithic. It can be further shown that within the ritual sub-system of the society there would seem to have been a more pronounced hierarchical structure.
Barrows
Barrows have been constructed in Ireland since the Middle Neolithic and were in use until the early centuries A.D. They may cover or contain megalithic Linkardstown type cists of the Neolithic, all of the burials type of the Bronze Age or cremations or inhumations of the Iron Age. In the east of Ireland the mounds of these sites have been levelled in large numbers, leaving Ring-ditches, or have been remodelled into ceremonial enclosures, as at Tara, or Medieval Mottes as at Rathmore, Co. Kildare. In the east, Ring-ditches have been dated as late as the seventh century AD. Bowl Barrows, often referred to as Tumuli or Moats, have a central dome-shaped mound, 2m or higher, usually enclosed by a fosse and one or more external banks. Where an enclosing fosse is not noted on the ground it is often found during excavation. Saucer barrows have low mounds, usually under 1m, and range from 5-20m in diameter with one or more enclosing fosses and banks. Bell barrows resemble bowls but have a berm between the mound and the fosse. Ring Barrows resemble Saucer barrows but have a flat interior rather than a mound. Another type of barrow has a bank and a hollow interior, these are pond barrows. Excavation has revealed that a significant number of barrows belong to the Iron Age (c. 300 BC-100 A.D), but many are of Bronze Age date as well. The barrows are often found in groups or cemeteries where a number of types can be found together. Sometimes they are found juxtaposed to megalithic cemeteries as at Carrowmore, Co. Sligo or associated with ceremonial enclosures.
Cairns
Barrows have been constructed in Ireland since the Neolithic, when they covered megalithic tombs and were in use until the fourth or fifth centuries A.D. Unlike barrows cairns are a by-product of agricultural clearance and in upland areas and on thin soils covering exposed geological formations would have been a readily available building material. Cairns are usually of three types. High cairns, resembling bowl barrows, which often covered passage tombs, much lower cairns of less than 2m in height with flat tops and ring cairns, which enclosed a central burial. A number of the cairns covering megalithic tombs had Bronze Age cists added to them or had the central chambers re-used for Bronze Age burial.
Ringforts and Cashels
Ringforts are the most common site type in Ireland. They were primarily built and used during the Early Christian period, 500-1200 AD. They are differentiated from cashels in having enclosing banks composed of dumped earth and sometimes a mixture of earth and stone. However these distinctions are not clear cut and some sites had earthen banks faced with stone, or had sections of the enclosing element composed alternately of earth or stone. In some cases the enclosing element is so eroded or robbed out and sod covered that it can be difficult to determine if it had originally been a wall or bank. The distinctions between ringforts and cashels may be more apparent to archaeologist than the people who built and used the sites and the choice of enclosing a site with stone or earth, or a combination of the two may have been determined by the availability of material, the difficulty of digging a fosse as well as social concerns of status, manpower and legal restraints.
Cashels were constructed at the same period and fulfilled the same functions as ringforts. They differ in their construction technique, being assembled rather than quarried and piled up, and therefore usually lack an enclosing fosse. The usual technique was usually to construct two concentric drystone walls of medium-sized blocks and slabs, limestone was the preferred material, set on a foundation of large boulders. The are between was then infilled with rubble. The construction technique allowed for some elaboration and in some case chambers were built into the walls, sometimes linked to souterrains, and stone steps might lead to broad wall walks. The walls are often, when well preserved, 2m or higher. As they represent a ready source of stone may have been plundered to build field walls, roads and houses. The quarrying and or collection of suitable stone, its transport and the requirements for skilled wall builders made a cashel a more expensive alternative to a ringfort and they are much leass common. They are also restricted to areas where suitable stone was available. Individuals unable to construct a complete cashel may have added stone revetments to ringforts to make them resemble cashels. Stone enclosure at Carrigillihy, Co. Cork was found to date to the Early Bronze Age and some cashels appear to have been occupied into the medieval period so that the site type appears to have a long currency.
Brochs
The massive Iron Age structures known as brochs are unique to north and west of Scotland.
Huge drystone towers, brochs are concentrated mainly in the northern tip of the Scottish mainland and the Northern Isles, with some also scattered across the west coast of Scotland and the Western Isles.
In total, at least 700 brochs are known to have existed across Scotland, constructed and developed over the period between 600 BC and 100 AD. Of these, archaeologists know of at least 50 in Orkney.
The actual number of Orcadian broch sites is likely to be much higher, however, as there are numerous unexcavated mounds throughout Orkney that may well contain broch remains.
What is a broch?
A typical broch stood from five to 13 metres high. It was a circular two-story drystone structure, accessed by a single door at ground level. Inside was a main inner "chamber" from which smaller cells - either built into, or up against, the wall - branched off. A winding stone staircase, housed within the broch's double walls, led upwards to elevated floors and finally the top of the structure. Although, like the earlier roundhouses, it is possible that some brochs were no more than fortified dwellings, the majority are thought to have had a defensive function and are characterised by immensely thick outer walls.
Orkney's brochs were feats of considerable architectural and engineering expertise, the key to which was the principle of double-skinned walls. Stronger and more stable than a single wall, the brochs had two parallel walls built with a hollow space between. These two outer "skins" were bonded at certain heights by stone lintel slabs - a method that allowed the broch's constructors to build to greater heights than could be achieved with solid walls.
"To construct stable walls of such height, in unmortared masonry or undressed stones shaped only by splitting, called for an engineer's understanding of force and stress."
Dr Raymond Lamb
Underground chambers
An intriguing element about the construction of Orkney's brochs, is that many of them were found to have an underground chamber, often accessed via a flight of stone steps. At one time these chambers were dismissed as domestic wells or cellar, but recent research has hinted at a more ritual use.
Souterrains
Souterrains are artificial, subterranean (or semi-subterranean) structures built to allow access and usually associated with habitation. They are common in ringforts and cashels of the Early Christian period c.A.D. 500-1200 A.D and appear to have been used as an underground bolt-hole if a ringfort was attacked and the simpler examples, without complex chambers and defensive arrangements such as creeps, were probably also a secure place to store valuables and perishable foods such as meat, butter or grain. In a sense the souterrains could represent the most defensive aspect of a ringfort and it has been suggested that their uneven distribution may indicate that they were constructed by tribal groupings engaged in struggles with neighbouring groups. The clustered distribution of souterrains has been further emphasized by the ongoing work of the Archaeological Survey. For example no souterrains were noted in any of the 261 enclosures and ringforts recently published in the inventory of county Carlow. |
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Category : archeology
| Posted By : David | Comments[68] | Trackbacks [0] |
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