Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

There’s probably nothing to really recommend a visit to Killogilleen church and graveyard, near Craughwell, Co. Galway. It’s rather typical of traditional burial sites in rural west of Ireland … there’s a ruined 15 th century church, there’s dated memorials going back to the 1600s, and continuing as late as the 1980s. You seen one you seen ‘em all! Right? … not this time! Back in 1996 I was employed on a F Á S Scheme to oversee the cutting back of the ivy and a general cleanup of the site. I was also tasked with compiling a book of the gravestone inscriptions on the site [ available here ]. One day in July I got called over to see ‘something interesting’ that had just been found … I’d have a few of these calls and for a variety of reasons. Some were cool architectural fragments that were reused as grave markers, some were just rocks (used as grave markers) … in a graveyard? Who'd believe it? I think it’s fair to say that I wasn’t filled with tingling anticipation at this latest di...

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...

< Back to Table of Contents In recent posts, I’ve concentrated on some of the treasures on display at the Musee de l'Ancien Eveche, but now I want to turn my attention to the wonderful Grenoble Archaeological Museum. If one were to be pedantic, I’m sure the case could be made that the museum is slightly miss-titled – it’s not so much a museum dedicated to the archaeology of Grenoble, but to the historic church site of Saint-Laurent. However, it’s just as true to say that the archaeology of Saint-Laurent is in no small part, the archaeology of Grenoble too. The church as it survives today is a intricate set of building phases and burial activity. However, the core upstanding structure is Romanesque (12th century) and the burials stretch back to the Gallo-Roman period (4th century). So far, so good! But what really sets Saint-Laurent apart from … well, pretty much anything else … is that fact that it has a surviving Merovingian crypt from the 6th century. Coming from I...

< 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 ...