Palaeolimnological impacts of early prehistoric farming at Lough Dargan,County Sligo,Ireland

This study provides a unique method of inquiry for archaeological investigation with an aim to assess the intensity and effects of Neolithic and Bronze Age farming practices at Lough Dargan, northwest Ireland, through a multi-proxy analysis of a lake sediment core. Chironomid (non-biting midge fly) subfossils and lake sediment geochemistry (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N and C:N ratios) were used to assess changes in limnological conditions through time. The limnological data were compared with macroscopic charcoal concentration and pollen data to examine the potential influence that early farmers had on a freshwater lake system within a prehistorically active catchment. Results from the chironomid analysis show that the first substantial period of agricultural activity in the early Neolithic (c. 3730–3190 BC) resulted in a temporary shift to more eutrophic lake conditions. There is evidence of animal husbandry with substantial levels of animal waste reaching the lake, leaving an imprint in the geochemical record of increased δ¹⁵N values and decreased δ¹³C values and C:N ratios during this time. The chironomid community reverted back to its pre-impacted state c. 3190 BC in response to a period of reduced farming (c. 3390–3000 BC) which eventually led to a distinct lull in activity, with possible cessation of farming from 3000 to 2700 BC. A return to eutrophic conditions coincided with the gradual return of agriculture, with more permanently altered lake conditions dominating from 2400 BC, even during a 250-year period of reduced human activity commencing at c. 1440 BC. Increased sedimentation rate, along with increases in δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N and C:N, the presence of chironomid taxa indicative of erosion, more eutrophic lake conditions and high concentrations of macroscopic charcoal all point to more intensive land use practices during the Bronze Age. Palaeolimnological data exhibited an immediate response to intensified farming during this time, and were especially responsive to pastoral farming due either to scale of activity or proximity to the lakeside. The success of this study demonstrates the effectiveness of palaeolimnological analysis in the investigation of prehistoric farming. This approach will help inform Neolithic and Bronze Age land-use practice and human–environment relations in the region, and highlights the potential for chironomid-based archaeological research.     

Henry Pelham's Lost Grand Jury Map of Kerry (c.1800): A Newly Found Derivative

The ‘South Division of the County of Kerry’ (GSI FS 1.2.001) is a copy of the southern half of a lost late eighteenth / early nineteenth century map of County Kerry, in southwestern Ireland. Geological annotations on the map are traced to specific episodes (c.1820, 1838 and 1844) in the unofficial geological survey of Ireland conducted by Richard (later Sir Richard) Griffith between 1811 and 1855. The Griffith provenance of the map is part of the evidence used to identify the ‘South Division of the County of Kerry’ as a derivative of the now lost Grand Jury map of Kerry made by the American émigré artist and cartographer Henry Pelham.     

A ‘Small Free Trade Oasis’?: agriculture,tariff policy,and the Danish example in Great Britain and Ireland,c. 1885–1911

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Denmark was an important overseas example in the United Kingdom's intertwined debates over free trade and agricultural modernization. Both countries remained open to foreign agricultural imports even as many other European states protected their farmers. But whilst British and Irish agriculture struggled, Denmark became a hugely successful exporter of dairy and pork. This achievement of rural prosperity under a liberal trade regime had obvious relevance to the future of agriculture in Britain, and particularly Ireland. Agricultural reformers in the two islands used the Danish example to show that technical education and co-operative production would allow farmers to profit even under free trade, whilst for British Liberals, ideologically committed to free trade, Denmark demonstrated that imported foodstuffs were actually a prerequisite for a flourishing rural economy. Several prominent Danish free traders personally intervened in the early 20th-century debate over tariff reform to affirm these very points. However, British and Irish protectionists contested the ‘free trade’ character of Denmark's fiscal policy. The article situates the Danish comparison within a broader Anglo-Scandinavian transnationalism, in which the themes of modernity and liberalism reside to the fore.     

Dealing with the past: Museums and heritage in northern ireland and Cape Town,South Africa

The experiences of post‐apartheid South Africa have often been used to open dialogue about Northern Ireland and the possible approaches to dealing with the legacy of the conflict. People in Northern Ireland have, for example, looked towards the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and policing in South Africa for further insights. This comparison of South Africa and Northern Ireland has now moved beyond being concerned predominantly with conflict resolution and has come to bear in the consideration of how we should present the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland’s museums and the value of preserving the built heritage of the Troubles. This paper uses the example of the ‘transformation’ in the South African heritage sector that came with the end of apartheid as a means to raise areas of concern that have resonance for Northern Ireland. It shows that for both Northern Ireland and South Africa it is important to think further about the impact of display, the power dynamics embedded in the construction of heritage, and the complexity of building a shared narrative from a contested past.     

Heritage,identity and community engagement at Dunluce Castle,Northern Ireland

As Northern Ireland transitions out of conflict, increased attention is being paid to the role heritage can play in building peace across society and developing a more sustainable future. Recent archaeological investigations at Dunluce Castle have uncovered elements of the site’s Gaelic past and the remains of an early seventeenth-century town built immediately prior to the Crown-sponsored Plantation of Ulster. The project included a dynamic programme of community engagement and outreach that created opportunities to work as a group in the embodied act of recovering the physical past. This formed a space in which to challenge aspects of the region’s contested past and facilitated the renegotiation of accepted local histories and existing identity constructs.     

The earls of Desmond and the Irish of south-western Munster

As a result of the incomplete English conquest, the relationship between the English in Ireland (the Anglo-Irish) and the native Irish is a major theme in the history of Ireland in the later middle ages. Since these connections were negotiated locally rather than centrally, each relationship is as individual as the Anglo-Irish lords and Irish leaders who negotiated them. This article explores the relationships between the Desmond Geraldines and two Irish dynasties which maintained semi-autonomous kingdoms to the north and southwest of the earldom of Desmond: the Uí Bhriain (O'Briens) and the Mic Charthaigh (Mac Carthys). The Desmond Geraldines developed relationships not just with the ruling lines but also with cadet branches of these dynasties. The connections which formed between the Desmond Geraldines and these Irish lineages demonstrate several of the key types of relationships which developed throughout Ireland as well as indicating the importance these associations played in both maintaining and disrupting the stability of the English lordship in Ireland.     

From Spatial Keynesianism to Post‐Fordist Neoliberalism: Emerging Contradictions in the Spatiality of the Irish State

Abstract: The transition from Fordism to post‐Fordism has been accompanied by profound changes in the spatiality of west European states. The hierarchical, top‐down and redistributive structures that typified the Fordist welfare state have been replaced by more complex spatial configurations as elements of economic and political power have shifted both downwards to subnational territorial levels and upwards to the supranational level. A major debate has developed around the nature of these emerging forms of state spatiality and of the processes underpinning their formation. This paper examines how these processes have operated in the particular case of the Republic of Ireland. Here, the spatiality of the state was founded on a peculiar post‐colonial combination of a localised populist politics and a centralised state bureaucracy. While this arrangement was quite suited to the spatial dispersal of industrial branch plants which underpinned regional policy in the 1960s and 1970s, it has become increasingly problematic with the more recent emergence of new trends in the nature and locational preferences of inward investment. This is reflected in the profound conflicts that have attended the formulation and implementation of the National Spatial Strategy, introduced in 2002. The result is a national space economy whose increasing dysfunctionality may now be compromising the very development model upon which Ireland's recent spectacular economic growth has been built.     

Solutions and frictions in civic hacking: collaboratively designing and building wait time predictions for an immigration office

Smart and data-driven technologies seek to create urban environments and systems that can operate efficiently and effortlessly. Yet, the design and implementation of such technical solutions are full of frictions, producing unanticipated consequences and generating turbulence that foreclose the creation of friction-free city solutions. In this paper, we examine the development of solutions for wait time predictions in the context of civic hacking to argue that a focus on frictions is important for establishing a critical understanding of innovation for urban everyday life. The empirical study adopted an ethnographically informed mobile methods approach to follow how frictions emerge and linger in the design and production of queue predictions developed through the civic hacking initiative, Code for Ireland. In so doing, the paper charts how solutions have to be worked up and strategies re-negotiated when a shared motivation meets different data sources, technical expertise, frames of understanding, urban imaginaries and organisational practices; and how solutions are contingently stabilised in technological, motivational, spatiotemporal and organisational specificities rather than unfolding in a smooth, linear, progressive trajectory.     

Palynological and temporal inference in the context of prehistory,with special reference to the evidence from lake and peat deposits

There is an increasing use of palynological data to infer prehistoric agricultural activity. The uncritical acceptance of the technique of pollen analysis by archaeologists and palynologists is questioned. Attention is focussed upon the nature of clearance activity and problems of its inference from pollen spectra; the spatial distribution of palaeoenvironmental sites; and the proximity of such sites to those of prehistoric activity. The resolution apparent in peat and lake sediment pollen profiles together with problems of dating and temporal inference, are examined. In response to a perceived lack of formalization in palynological research, some simple models of clearance activity are presented. The complexity involved in environmental reconstruction is emphasized by reference to the use of supplementary data to augment the orthodox pollen record.     

Style in New Ireland Art and Culture: Grasping the Native's Point of View

A review of definitions of style and studies of particular people suggest that while many studies of art discuss iconography, social relationships, structure, identity, form, function, and so on, few discuss style; and fewer discuss style as world view, ethos, values, or gestalt. In this paper, I report some findings of field work in the arts and cultures of New Ireland and New Hanover in support of research in cultural anthropology on style in this larger sense. I will provide some documentation for ‘the Native's point of view’ on this subject, which affirms its importance in any study of culture.