EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Introduction
the National Roads Authority (e.g. O’Sullivan & Stanley 2005; 2006; 2007) have been
instrumental in popularising excavations undertaken on various road schemes in the
2000s.
A large number of these summaries are, however, based on unpublished (or
incompletely published) excavation reports. These sites were identified by us
primarily from the excavators’ previous concise summaries included in the
Excavations Bulletin, and were then augmented by a more detailed excavation report
received either directly from the excavator, or consulted at the Department of the
Environment (St Stephen’s Green, Dublin), or the Northern Ireland Environment
Agency (Hill Street, Belfast). Internet resources were also highly important in
collating these excavations, especially the NRA website
(http://www.nra.ie/Archaeology/) which has made available excavation reports on a
number of major roadways, as well as the home pages of certain commercial
companies, for example the innovative and hopefully influential Eachtra Journal
recently produced online by Eachtra Archaeological Projects
(http://eachtra.ie/index.php/journal/).
As is the nature of such works as this, there is always the possibility – nay certainty -
that certain key sites have been omitted. The starting date for the gazetteer (1930)
means, for example, that H.C. Lawlor’s excavations at Nendrum, Co. Down are not
summarised here (Lawlor 1925). The general closing date (2005) is dictated by the
most up-to-date version of the Excavations Bulletin, but certainly many post-2005
excavations are included here since they have appeared in other publications or
websites. Time constraints, and problems in accessing certain reports, have also
meant that certain excavations (e.g. those in Limerick City) have not been
summarised here. In a similar fashion it has not been able to reproduce site plans for
every excavation since a number of excavation reports do not include relevant
illustrations. In short, there is much that has been omitted – largely due to the brief
period of time available to us – and we would hope to improve this gazetteer with
further research and editing in 2010.
A Note on Terminologies
In terms of terminology, we have attempted to use standard terms for site types.
The terms ‘rath’ and ‘ringfort’, which cover the predominant settlement type from
this period, have often been used interchangeably, although ‘ringfort’ tends to be
preferred in the Republic of Ireland, and ‘rath’ in Northern Ireland. Partly to resolve
this conflict, and partly to deal with the issue of ‘non-circular’ enclosure (Kinsella
2010), it was decided to reclassify all these as ‘settlement enclosures’. As such there
are five major groupings of early medieval settlement types discussed in this volume
(Fig. 1).
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