Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Those of you following our Archaeology 360 video series will know that we first visited the early medieval site at Nendrum [ here ] and, rather predictably, followed it up with a visit to Mahee Castle [ here ], just a couple of hundred meters away. For the concluding part of this trilogy (for a trilogy it is!), we visited the slightly less well-known church site at Tullynakill, Co. Down.   Tullynakill, although not nearly as well known, is part of the Nendrum story as it took over the former's role of parish church by the late 15th century. While the standing structure is of this date, to a century later, the decorated stonework is all of 17th century manufacture.   This is not the first time the Chapples Minor have visited Tullynakill! We were last here in 2015 where I took photographs and they played hide-and-seek [ here ]. Indeed, the Chapples Minor declared that of all the sites we visited that day, it was the best, but mostly because of the hide-and-seek experienc...

< 3D Images < Table of Contents Having concluded our visit to Sketrick Castle (Chapple Major: Loved it. Chapples Minor: Unimpressed), we next headed for Tullynakill church. This was to be our fourth archaeological site of the day and the children were getting bored and tired. I did my best to be enthusiastic, but I wasn’t holding out too much hope. While we were at Sketrick the clouds had closed over, the wind had risen, and the temperature dropped. It only looked like it was going to get more miserable. It’s less than three miles from Sketrick to Tullynakill, but somewhere along the way, the clouds parted, the wind ceased to blow, the air grew warm, and the sun shone. We parked the car and made our way onto the site and the atmosphere just felt magical. Although the majority of the standing structure is 15th to 16th century, all the decorated stonework is of 17th century date. In the late 15th century it replaced Nendrum (4 miles away by road, or 1.5 miles as ...

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< Table of Contents Some time ago, I took my children, the Chapples Minor, out for a day of archaeology sightseeing. Admittedly, promises of significant amounts of both bacon and ice cream had to be made to ensure compliance with the plan. Once we had attained some degree of agreement, the next question was where exactly we should go. The parameters included: sites we’d not previously visited before and distances relatively close to home. At this point, I deftly reached for my copy of ‘ A Guide to the Historic Monuments of Northern Ireland in State Care ’ and began to leaf through. I quickly identified a cluster of sites along the western edge of Strangford Lough as worthy of further investigation. Places like Mahee Castle and Nendrum monastic site were fairly well known to us, but other dots on the map were less so. That is how I ended up, having followed my SatNav, on a narrow road with a number of ‘Private: Keep Out’ signs, looking and feeling lost. I spoke to a passi...

One summer's day in 2015 I took my children, the Chapples Minor, off for an adventure of archaeology (supplemented by quantities of bacon and ice cream). In my typical style, it's only now (at the end of 2017) that I'm getting around to giving an account of where we went and what we saw. As I said with the series of Glendalough posts : I saw the sights, I took some photos. I've even turned some of the photos into 3D anaglyphs. 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 will go live, so if you can’t reach an individual post, do come back later! Ringhaddy Castle, Co. Down Ringhaddy Church, Co. Down Sketrick Castle, Co. Down Tullynakill Church, Co. Down *           *           * Ringhaddy Castle, Co. Down 3D Ringhaddy Church, Co. Down 3D Sketrick Castle, Co. Down 3D Tullynakill Church, Co. Down 3D