Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Dr Chris Lynn & Giant Pillar of Light at Errigal Keerogue, 2000 Historical sources suggest that a  St  Chiarog founded a chri stian  monastery here in the 6th century, but  there has probably a been a religious site of some description on this esporgent hill in rural Tyrone for as long as there have been humans to want religion. Today it is a quiet spot, quite a bit off the main road, dominated by the ruin of a late medieval church perched on top of the hill. Inside the church is a replica of a medieval tombstone, possibly representing a knight. However, the real treasure of this fantastic little site stands just to the west of the church building -  an unfinished High Cross of Early Medieval date.  The megalithicireland.com site describes is as having 'Short stubby arms ... slightly protruding from an unpierced ring'. In the right light you can see a set of incised lines marking a ring and concave arms on on the eastern face. On the opposite (west...

< 3D Images <Table of Contents The next place on my itinerary wasn’t too far from Knockmany … at least once I’d gotten myself un-lost and back on the main road. I’ve visited Errigal Keerogue Church a few times over the years and it always draws me back. The first time I was taken there I was in the company of the wonderful Chris Lynn, driving back from a Historic Monuments Council meeting. I always enjoyed being in Chris’s company - it was inevitably both a pleasure and an education. On this occasion he was talking about the Clogher valley landscape and a number of his experiences and adventures therein when he mentioned Errigal Keerogue. Had I been there, he asked? Er … no … no I’d not. To be honest, I’d not even heard of it, much less had it on a personal archaeological ‘bucket list’, but I wasn’t going to mention that bit. With that he eased the car onto a side road and after only a few minutes we were parking up in front of a seemingly rather ordinary ruin of a m...

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In March 2015 I had decided to go to wonderful Sligo to be part of the Weather Beaten Archaeology conference, to be held at IT Sligo. Although the festivities did not kick off in earnest until 8pm on the Friday, I set off from Belfast quite early. My plan – and I did have one! – was to stop off along the way and see some archaeological sites that I’ve either never visited, or hadn’t been to see in far too long. As I’ve described in my series of posts on Glendalough (also visited in 2015), my modus operandi was to travel with my Nikon D3200, my Manfrotto tripod, and a curious bit of kit that allows me to slide the camera along the line of its focal plane. These items, when used together in the right way, allow me to take near identical photographs that I can then combine (with a cool little piece of software) to produce 3D anaglyph images. The purpose of this post is to act as a Table of Contents to the various posts. As each post is published, the corresponding links wil...