Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Knock Iveagh is a hill, near Rathfriland, Co. Down. It was chosen as the site of a prehistoric burial cairn around 4,000 BC and continued into later times as the inauguration place of the Magennis chiefs. It has long been known that the hill sits at the centre of a significant ceremonial and ritual landscape. However, it is only now becoming apparent that the area has been significantly under-studied and under-appreciated. I recently contributed a short note on the possible external ditch visible around part of Lisnacroppan Barrow to the south-west of Knock Iveagh [ here ]. At that time I noted that the aerial photographs that had been made available to me, although very beautiful, were not of much archaeological use as some fields had recently been cropped and there was no vegetation differential that would appear as cropmarks. The Friends of Knock Iveagh, undeterred, resolved to get a drone out and looking for further potential archaeological features as soon as possible. To b...

I don’t know when I last saw a week as densely populated with stories of interesting and important discoveries in Irish archaeology as this one past. Chief among these has been Ken Williams’ & Anthony Murphy’s series of discoveries in the Boyne Valley ( here ) as well as other similar discoveries across the UK where the recent drought had revealed some impressive cropmarks associated with sub-surface archaeological features. Being of the mind to never leave a band wagon un-jumped upon, I was delighted when I was offered a collection of photographs of Knock Iveagh and environs, near Rathfriland, Co Down, taken from a drone over the past week or so. This approach has many advantages, not least of which is that no one as uncoordinated and accident prone as I am is allowed to pilot a drone through the skies of Co. Down! Unfortunately, a number of factors limited the use of these images. In the first instance, a substantial number of fields appear to have had their crops cut b...