Memory Ireland: Volume 1: History and Modernity

6. Women and the Survival of Archaeological Monuments in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

83 6 Women and the Survival of Archaeological Monuments in Nineteenth-Century Ireland M Á I R Í N N Í CH E A L L A IGH In the 1840s, while famine and disease gnawed at the lives of large sections of Ireland’s poor, Irish antiquarians increasingly turned their attention to the study of prehistoric and other archaeological remains. Inspired by the visit of the Danish antiquarian Worsaae and his account of the development of the chronological framework known as the “Three Age System” (Worsaae 1845–7, 312–14), members of learned societies and students of the past visited and described a variety of mounds and megalithic constructions. They may also, consciously or unconsciously, have been mirroring Worsaae’s observation that “It was immediately after great national calamities, that the attention of the Danish people was turned to that early period of their history, as a time from the contemplation of which their spirit of nationality might gain support, and in whose memories they found the hope of a new and equally glorious era again” (312). The attention paid by mid-nineteenthcentury antiquarians to the remains of the prehistoric Irish past may therefore have been an attempt to replace narratives of poverty and sudden death with accounts of past glory that were attached to places that had endured for centuries, if not millennia. The success of their efforts led eventually to the incorporation of archaeology into the heart of later-nineteenth-century nationalism and the codification of their visions of the past in legislation and in school curricula. These midcentury endeavours were tinged by an awareness not only of the erosion of “traditional” life-ways, but also by an often romantic and negative perception of the effects of “modernity” and agricultural improvement 84 Remembrance and Forgetting in Early and Premodern Irish Culture on archaeological sites. Since the later eighteenth century, the surge in population and the consequent need for cultivable land had encouraged the extension of agricultural practices into previously uncultivated areas (G. Smith 1999, 156). At the same time, economic utilitarianism (Duddy 2002, 215) and the rejection of associations between monuments and supernatural forces (O’Flanagan 1929a, 8) encouraged many farmers to remove inconveniently placed sites that lay in fertile farmland. As a result, increasing numbers of archaeological features were eroded or obliterated, as their organic-laden layers provided rich sources of compost and lime (Anon. 1862, 456; Mease 1849–51, 463; Windele 1849–51, 144) and as their stones could be used as building materials (Hitchcock 1854–55a, 348, 351). Ironically, the growing patriotism and empiricism of early-nineteenth-century antiquarians also impacted negatively on monuments, as the desire to assemble collections of ancient artifacts promoted the perception of sites as treasure stores (Croker 1998, 103; Smith 1999, 167–68). By the midcentury, economic desperation may have driven increasing numbers of people to rummage among the stones, banks, and ditches of archaeological sites in quest of objects to sell (G. Smith 1999, 161–64) even as antiquarians and cultural nationalists called for increased monument protection (T. Davis 1914b, 96–98; Committee of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society 1849–51, 99). Although few antiquarians directly acknowledged the effects of famine and emigration, accounts in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy or the newly established journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society contained numerous mournful descriptions of the destruction of monuments (Brash 1852–53, 271–72; C. Graves 1850–53, 43; Hitchcock 1854–55b, 393; Otway 1836–40, 210; Prim 1852–53; Reade 1854–55). These accounts reflected the continuation of pre-Famine landscape changes in the postFamine period, as farm holdings were consolidated and as tillage gave way to stock rearing in many areas (Daly 1981, 27–31; Bell and Watson 2008, 31–32, 242). The large-scale famine relief schemes implemented in various parts of the country in the later 1840s may have intensified this trend, as they introduced systematic land clearances and the quarrying of mounds and archaeological sites for road improvement schemes. The destruction of monuments had ideological as well as economic origins , however, which many antiquarians appreciated. Although deprecating Women and the Survival of Archaeological Monuments 85 of traditional understandings of monuments as sites of fairy occupation or the graves of giants, archaeologists and antiquarians were aware of the role these stories played in ensuring the survival of many monuments. As one observer noted, “when the site of the monument becomes obliterated . . . it is probable...