Niall Brady, PhD, FSA,
Director, The Archaeological Diving Company Ltd & Project Director of Castles in Communities
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Castles in Communities: the Ballintober Project, what, why and how (Keynote Address)
Niall Brady is no stranger to north Roscommon and Tulsk, and was project director of the Medieval Rural Settlement Project for the Discovery Programme, 2002-10, where he directed excavations of Tulsk Fort. Since 2014, and in collaboration with US-based colleagues Sam Connell, Chad Gifford and Kathryn Mauer, he has developed the Castles in Communities archaeological and anthropological research fieldschool, supported by Foothill College, California. In 2015, the project began to work in Ballintober and will begin its third season in July 2017.
The research of the Ballintober Project is concerned with exploring what it was like to have a successful Anglo-Norman manor nestled in Gaelic heartlands west of the Shannon. It is a subject we know surprizingly little about, despite the great deal of attention given to revealing the nature of life in Gaelic medieval Ireland, which has been a national research goal since the late 1990s. Ballintober also offers more, and the project that is growiing there includes a dynamic anthropoloigical thread, which pushes us to nurture our ideas within the context of the communities who developed and continue to live there, in the shadow of its castle. The castle itself is a ruin today, but can it become more than that and can our work in communion with its landowners and the village make a contribution that is meaningful and long-lasting. Such thoughts will inform this Keynote Address.
For more information on the Castles in Communities Project, visit: https://www.archaeological.org/fieldwork/afob/17920 & https://www.facebook.com/castles.in.communities
The research of the Ballintober Project is concerned with exploring what it was like to have a successful Anglo-Norman manor nestled in Gaelic heartlands west of the Shannon. It is a subject we know surprizingly little about, despite the great deal of attention given to revealing the nature of life in Gaelic medieval Ireland, which has been a national research goal since the late 1990s. Ballintober also offers more, and the project that is growiing there includes a dynamic anthropoloigical thread, which pushes us to nurture our ideas within the context of the communities who developed and continue to live there, in the shadow of its castle. The castle itself is a ruin today, but can it become more than that and can our work in communion with its landowners and the village make a contribution that is meaningful and long-lasting. Such thoughts will inform this Keynote Address.
For more information on the Castles in Communities Project, visit: https://www.archaeological.org/fieldwork/afob/17920 & https://www.facebook.com/castles.in.communities
