Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

  At the end of last year the Chapple family headed off to explore the archaeology of Tyrone & Fermanagh and we stopped along the way at Clogher Hill Fort. Clogher is a complex site that, at least, goes back to the Late Bronze Age. The site is located on one of the highest points in the area and sits at an ancient crossroads that would have put it at the centre of traffic, trade, and (ultimately) power. The site itself appear to have started off as a large enclosure defied by a bank and ditch (Hill Fort), with a later ringfort built on top in the Early Medieval period. Away from the main site, on the southern tip of this north-south running hill, is a beautiful ring barrow of Bronze Age or Iron Age date. Between the two is a roughly triangular mound, thought to be used for royal inaugurations. Excavations by the wonderful Richard Warner in the 1970s produced evidence of contacts with the wider world and demonstrate a trade in high value goods, including wine amphorae from the...

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the secure button at the end. If you think it is interesting or useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. To help keep the site in operation, please use the amazon search portal at the end of the post - each purchase earns a small amount of advertising revenue**] Earlier this summer I took time off work to help out with childcare and to spend some time with my two sons, while their regular child-minder took a much needed and deserved holiday. It turns out that my wife and I had … let’s call them ‘divergent’ … ideas as to what constitutes a ‘fun day out’ for the children. She does things like making aliens out of cardboard boxes and tissues, providing home-made playdough (called ‘squashy’ in our house), and building temporary housing for our garden snails (a snail aquarium, or ‘snailarium’, if you will). I, however, appear to have a different idea of ‘fun’. My tendency is to stick the...