People, Prehistory and the Past

Essays in honour of John Waddell

Michelle Comber and Kieran O’Conor

Dedicated to John Waddell, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Galway, an internationally renowned and popular scholar whose long career and research changed the direction of prehistoric studies in Ireland, this collection of essays, authored by a number of his colleagues, continues John’s work by examining aspects of Irish prehistory and the interaction of people with the past. 

Contents include: Stefan Bergh and Robert Hensey (UG), Capstones and potential capstones at the Carrowmore megalithic complex; Mary Cahill (NMI), Going to sea in a lunula; Michelle Comber and Noel McCarthy (UG), From prehistory to medieval: living among the ancestors in the Burren, Co. Clare; Daniel Curley (Rathcroghan Visitor Centre), Evidence for the heroic narratives as seen in Machaire Connacht; Joseph Fenwick (UG), An exploration of passage tomb alignment, related kerbstone art and cycles of monumental construction at Brú na Bóinne; Carleton Jones (UG), Identity in Early Bronze Age western Ireland – a study of pottery and landscape; Conor Newman (UG), A contribution to the debate concerning archaeology and early vernacular literature; Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha (UG), The Mac Diarmada inauguration site at Croghan (Cruachán), County Roscommon; William O’Brien (UCC), Ogham stones, souterrains and ancestral memory in Early Medieval Ireland; Kieran O’Conor (UG), Lady Dorothy Lowry-Corry (1885–1967).

Michelle Comber and Kieran O’Conor are lecturers in Archaeology at the University of Galway.