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One Day Guided Tour Free for Students on Excavation & Recording 1 Course

As an extra bonus for signing up to our six-week course ‘Excavation & Recording 1‘, all students on this course will enjoy a free one-day guided tour of archaeological sites of interest in County Sligo. The day tour, including lunch, is offer free-of-charge to students who enroll on this course before 1st March 2023. The tour will focus on two sites: Carrowmore Passage Tomb megalithic cemetery – 6,000 years old… Read More »One Day Guided Tour Free for Students on Excavation & Recording 1 Course

Colin Farrell and Jenny the Donkey at Cloughmore, Achill Island

Banshees of Inisherin, Filmed on Achill Island, Wins 3 Golden Globes

The Martin McDonagh movie ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’, which was largely filmed on location here on Achill Island, has won three Golden Globe awards. Filming took place in late summer 2021 at six locations on Achill Island, as well as on Inishmore, one of the Aran Islands in Co. Galway. Among the locations used on Achill was Keem Bay, some 4.5km from our campus in Dooagh, and which has been… Read More »Banshees of Inisherin, Filmed on Achill Island, Wins 3 Golden Globes

Tawnaghmore site

2021 Season Cancelled due to COVID-19

COVID–19 UPDATE: 12 April 2021 It is with much regret and great sadness that as a result of the unprecedented and unpredictable conditions arising from the continuing spread of Covid-19, also known as the Coronavirus, that we announce today, in consideration of the health and safety of our student participants and staff members, the cancellation of the 2021 Achill Archaeological Field School program. Despite our hope and strong desire to offer… Read More »2021 Season Cancelled due to COVID-19

Students on field trip at Keem Bay, Achill Island

Introduction: Help Us Write the History of Achill Island

“Having a seat at the table and an acknowledged voice matters far more to local communities than being invited to hear foreigners talk to them about local cultural heritage and what it should mean to them.” – Alex Knodell, 2009 Hello! My name is Faith Walker and I am a third-year university student from America. During the summer of 2019 I will be researching community engagement with the Achill Archaeological… Read More »Introduction: Help Us Write the History of Achill Island

Students in excavated cottage site, Caraun Point, Achill Island

Pot-boilers, limpets, and wine bottles: Digging Caraun Point 2018

What was it like to live on an island off Ireland’s Atlantic coast in the eighteenth century? Popular images of this place and time are often grim. The looming spectre of the mid-ninteenth century Famine, and echoes of the Cromwellian dispossessions of the 1650s colour our perceptions of the period. How did people really experience it? Where historical documents are largely penned by biased outsiders, archaeology provides a unique methodology… Read More »Pot-boilers, limpets, and wine bottles: Digging Caraun Point 2018

Illuminating the past: Experimenting with rush lights

By Bridgit Lee Working here at the Achill Archaeological Field School on early modern vernacular housing for the past two summers, one of the constant questions for me was how were these houses lit? Of course there were the open fires in the houses that would have provided some light to the house but what was used for the more detailed domestic work of sewing and knitting? This question lead… Read More »Illuminating the past: Experimenting with rush lights

Author Theresa McDonald with new Achill guidebook, with speaker Michael Gibbons

Launch of New Achill Archaeology Guidebook

Theresa McDonald’s new book, A Guide to Archaeological and Historical Sites on Achill, Achillbeg and the Corraun Peninsula, was launched last night in Dooagh by well-known archaeologist Michael Gibbons. The launch was organised by Achill Historical and Archaeological Society and included  a fascinating lecture by Michael Gibbons on the history of seaweed farming in eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland. The book was published in 2016 and is a practical and informative guide… Read More »Launch of New Achill Archaeology Guidebook