Come to Ireland with me!

Erin Hart & Celtic Journeys Present
IRELAND WITH ERIN HART
April 8-18, 2016 
10 days/9 nights in Ireland focusing on history, mystery, archaeology & folklore

I'm excited this year to be working with Jean Wynne of Celtic Journeys. I will be leading a small band of a dozen or so on a wonderful trip called "Ireland with Erin Hart" focusing on history, mystery, archaeology & folklore—full of fascinating historic sites, informal chats with archaeologists, folklorists, storytellers and musicians. 

Dates are April 8 (departing the US) to April 18. Have a look at our full itinerary, and find out how to make your reservation—just click on the links below. 

The booking deadline is February 8, 2016, so please get in touch with Jean Wynne right away if you're interested!

Join me for this unique trip through Ireland, visiting many of the places that have inspired my writing, from the archaeology of ancient sites, the peat bog and its hidden treasures, and all along the way exploring the folklore and folkways of Ireland, past and present. 

We'll spend three nights in Dublin, exploring the city and taking in the the bog men and the Faddan More Psalter at the National Museum, along with the Book of Kells at Trinity College, traditional music sessions, and a day trip to Lough Crew megalithic cemetery. 

From Dublin we'll head to the ancient monastery at Glendalough, and take in Ireland's oldest city of Waterford where we'll go into the Mayor's Wine Vault, under the city from medieval times. 

Then westward to Dingle Peninsula, taking in its rugged beauty (not to mention its music and fresh seafood) before traveling up the coast and into West Galway, Connemara and the Aran Islands. Along the way, we'll visit with renowned storytellers, musicians, archaeologists, and folklorists. Finally, we'll head east across the bogs toward Dublin again and have a last night in a Barberstown Castle, a magical way to end your journey through Ireland! 

Questions? Please call Jean Wynne at 651-291-8003 or email her at jean@celtic-journeys.com. 

Full details, itinerary and reservation form are also on my website, and at Celtic Journeys website. 

Gold torc found in Fermanagh declared 'important treasure'

 

People ask me all the time whether artifacts (or artefacts, as they spell it in Ireland) really turn up with such regularity as they do in my novels. All I can say is that I don't have to make anything up!

Take this piece, for instance, a 3,000-year-old gold torc discovered in 2009 near Corrard in County Fermanagh by metal-detecting enthusiast Ronnie Johnston. Mr. Johnston thought the piece was a vintage car spring, so he washed it and stuck it in the back of  a drawer. Only after seeing pictures of another gold torc did he realize that he might have found something extremely rare and valuable.

When Mr. Johnston discovered what he had, he showed it to his brother, who went to the Armagh County Museum, and a hearing was set up with the local coroner to determine the torc's status and fate. Analysis showed it was 87% gold and 11% silver, which meant it was officially classifiable as 'treasure' and subject to treasure trove laws of the United Kingdom. (Fermanagh is one of the six counties of the Irish province of Ulster that remain part of the UK.)  

So now the torc will go to the British Museum for valuation, and then the British Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure will have to secure funding to purchase the object from Mr. Johnston in order to put it on public display. 

There are a couple of interesting things about this case... Use of metal detectors near historic sites is against the law in the Republic of Ireland, but not in the United Kingdom. And the torc will go to the British Museum rather than the National Museum of Ireland for examination and valuation. The eventual hope is that it will be returned to Northern Ireland for display in a museum.

Read more about the find here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17561882

Thanks to my friend, Fermanagh flute player Laurence Nugent, for the heads-up on this!

Another from the 'I Don't Have to Make Anything Up' Department

Another set of human remains were discovered in early August in Cul na Móna bog in County Laois (Ireland). According to Ned Kelly of the National Museum of Ireland (who very kindly sat for an interview with me in April), the lower limbs may have belonged to someone who was a victim of human sacrifice a couple of thousand years ago. At first the archaeologists believed that the lower portion of the body was encased in a leather bag, but now they're trying to determine whether the 'leather bag' found with the body is actually its torso.

This is one of the very few Irish bog bodies discovered in situ, that is, in its original location, so it's a rare find indeed. More will be revealed as the archaeologists and forensic scientists begin their work.

IRISH TIMES story on the bog find

RTE news story on the Laois bog body

IRISH ARCHAEOLOGY article about recent bog bodies

THEJOURNAL.IE article on the Laois bog body

Another cask of bog butter found, in Tullamore, Co Offaly

Two turf-cutters have just discovered a wooden cask of bog butter outside Tullamore, Co Offaly that may be two to three thousand years old. Joe Clancy and his nephew Brian were cutting turf in Ballard Bog when they came upon what they described as 'a huge piece of timber.' They took it out with a spade, and found that it was bog butter in container.

The container has carved marks around the edges, a removable lid with handles and holes, possibly for carrying. It's about a foot in diameter, about two feet tall, and weighed just over 100 pounds. After going home and researching 'bog butter' on the Internet, Joe Clancy packed the container in wet peat and brought it home, and immediately contacted the National Museum of Ireland. Joe Clancy also remarked that the white substance inside the container still had a 'dairy smell.'

Or, as Seamus Heaney put it in his poem, 'Bogland':  'Butter sunk under / More than a hundred years / Was recovered salty and white.'

Andy Halpin, the archaeologist from National Museum who visited the site to take measurements and recover the specimen for further examination, said that tests would reveal how old the butter is, and speculated that it could have been buried in the Ballard area because it was on the ancient boundary between two territories.

Knockranny Court Tomb, near Ballyfarnon, Co Roscommon

Thought you might like to see and hear the sound of a wood surrounding an ancient court tomb in Roscommon. A feast of bluebells and birdsong. Betty and I stumbled upon this by accident, one of those spectacularly serendipitous discoveries that you remember forever...

Archaeological tidbit:  A 'Court Tomb' usually refers to a Neolithic (New Stone Age ~3000 BCE) burial site with a flat-roofed gallery, sometimes fronted by a semi-circular 'courtyard' marked out by stones. Sometimes the structures are quite complex, with more than one internal chamber. Other names for Court Tombs are Court Cairns, Court Graves, or Horned Cairns.

Secrets of the Stones

Am in the midst of watching a great archaeology program about Ireland's megalithic and other ancient stone monuments! Excellent visuals of carvings, plus the most spectacular aerial shots of earthworks at Carrowmore, Tara, Newgrange, and Knowth. I wish they'd spent a little more time explaining the science of geophysics, but maybe that's just me!

http://www.rte.ie/tv/secretsofthestones/watch.html