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Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Archaeology of Ireland,” a look at what major sites reveal about the island from prehistory to the present, with Victoria McAlister, assistant professor of Digital Environmental Humanities at Towson University, scholar of medieval buildings, teacher of a course on Irish history, and author of the award-winning book The Irish Tower House.
Although Ireland is just a tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean, its cultural impact has been immense, with evidence of crucial moments and figures in its past to be found throughout its landscape.
Gear up for Saint Patrick’s Day by taking a whirlwind scholarly tour of several Ireland’s major archaeological sites and learning what they tell us about the island’s history.
Your guide on this journey, Dr. Victoria McAlister, is a historian who uses modern technologies such as drones and 3D scanners to virtually reconstruct medieval structures. She has given excellent Profs and Pints talks on medieval castles and ruins and presented the Great Courses lecture series The Great Castles of Europe. Her background leaves her distinctly well-suited to bring Ireland’s past back to life before your eyes.
She’ll start by taking you back to the Stone Age and to Newgrange, a grand tomb that, having been built around 3200 BCE, predates both Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. It stands as a stunning example of the many stone structures left behind by Ireland’s prehistoric inhabitants.
From there we’ll look at other archaeological sites of the Irish Bronze and Iron Age, which form the real backdrop to many of Ireland’s myths and legends. Then we’ll move on to examine at the 5th century, when St. Patrick converted the Irish to Christianity, and sites associated with Ireland’s vibrant early Christian church.
Other stops on our scholarly journey: Remnants of the late 8th century Viking invasion and settlement of Ireland and of their founding of several major cities. Several of the thousands of castles built by the Anglo Normans, who arrived a few hundred years later, and by the Irish. Dublin Castle and Blarney Castle, home to the Blarney stone. Woodstown, once a bustling Viking town with connections stretching across Europe.
You’ll learn from an examination of Ireland’s infamous battlefields that archaeology isn’t just about sites but landscapes too. We’ll end our journey in the present day at Leinster House, in the heart of Georgian-era Dublin, and the nextdoor National Museum of Ireland, home to Ireland’s main archaeological collections. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk begins 30 minutes later.)
Image: Stone age art at Ireland’s Newgrange. (Photo by Johnbod / Wikimedia Commons .)
