(All Photos courtesy Paul Curran)
On Weds 15 May Carlow Historical & Archaeological Society presented an entertaining and very educational talk in the Talbot Hotel by Eoin Grogan on Excavations at Carrig, Co. Wicklow: A Bronze Age family cemetery.
Dr Grogan explained how land improvement works in December 1984 revealed a previously unknown burial monument. The site—a Bronze Age cemetery cairn—overlooks the confluence of the King and Liffey Rivers, now engulfed by the Poulaphouca (Blessington) Reservoir in West Wicklow. The low cairn marked six separate graves, some containing multiple burials, and produce a rich assemblage of grave goods including several intact, or near intact, early Bronze Age pots. The cemetery was in use throughout most of the period (from c. 2100—800 BC) probably by a single influential local family. Dr Grogan brought along one of the Bronze Age pots which proved a great hit with all present.
Dr Eoin Grogan is a landscape archaeologist specialising in Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement and social studies. Eoin has published extensively and directed several excavations including the Bronze Age sites at Mitchelstowndown, Clenagh and the hillfort at Mooghaun, Co. Clare. Having taught in University College Dublin he spent over ten years as Research Director in the Discovery Programme before taking up his present lecturing post in Irish Cultural Heritage in the School of Celtic Studies, Maynooth University.
Dr Grogan kindly allowed CHAS to make his presentation available on our website and it can be viewed here.
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