Bogucki P., Crabtree P. Ancient Europe 8000 B.C.-A.D. 1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. Volume 2

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noise in County Offaly and Glendalough in County

Wicklow also have the remains of many stone build-

ings within their monastic enclosures, including

churches and round towers. These sites are covered

extensively in the later ecclesiastical texts that have

survived to the present. Indeed, most of the exam-

ples of stone architecture surviving from this period

are ecclesiastical in origin, including Cormac’s

Chapel, built by King Cormac Mac Carthaig on top

of the Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary. Dating

to the ﬁrst half of the twelfth century, it is universal-

ly considered the most beautiful surviving example

of Irish Romanesque architecture. It was in the

monasteries that some of the greatest schools of reli-

gious manuscript production were located. They

produced the masterpieces of illumination, includ-

ing the Book of Durrow (c.

A.D. 650) and the Book

of Kells (c.

A.D. 800), both on display in Trinity

College, Dublin.

It is also important to recognize that there are

many other smaller enclosures in the landscape, de-

lineated by either an earthen or stone bank, that

originally might have had some kind of monastic

function but which have only been identiﬁed by ae-

rial photography or ﬁeld survey. In other words,

they do not possess any documentary sources that

can positively identify them as such. There are also

sites with place names that contain ecclesiastical ele-

ments such as “kill” but which, on further archaeo-

logical examination, have produced no evidence of

ecclesiastical activity. Therefore, it is wise to follow

Ann Hamlin’s guidance in this by not considering

any site ecclesiastical unless it includes clear evi-

dence of a church and burials.

The whole question of urban settlement in this

period is also under continuing discussion, especial-

ly the extent and nature of indigenous forms of ur-

banism. Increasingly, it is becoming accepted that

some of the larger and more inﬂuential monasteries

such as Armagh, the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland,

were by the tenth and eleventh centuries exhibiting

many of the characteristics of urban settlement.

Such attributes, including streets and districts with

extensive craft production, were largely the norm

for the rest of continental Europe. Heather King has

located important archaeological evidence of an

urban secular settlement alongside the religious

core of the monastery of Clonmacnoise, as well as

evidence of an extensive vallum that separated the

settlement’s monastic and secular communities.

RURAL SETTLEMENT

The most ubiquitous settlements during the Early

Medieval period were the ringforts. It has been esti-

mated that at least ﬁfty thousand examples survived

to be mapped by the Ordnance Survey in the middle

of the nineteenth century. These are circular settle-

ments, the design of which varied depending on

where they were located. Those in the eastern half

of the country had an earthen bank and an external

dry fosse (ditch), or rath. Those in the western

fringes had a perimeter bank built of dry stone and

are therefore known as cashels. These settlements

have an average diameter of 30 meters, although

there are examples that are much larger and many

that possess several lines of defensive banks. While

the majority of the ringforts functioned as single-

family defended farmsteads of the free element in

Irish society, which was largely tribal at the time,

with many small kingdoms, the larger ones may also

have served as centers for particular tribal groups.

Although less than two hundred sites have been ex-

cavated, the majority of them appear to have been

constructed in the second half of the ﬁrst millenni-

um. It is thought that few ringforts were built after

A.D. 1000, but some were still being utilized after

the Norman conquest of Ireland that began in

1169. In addition to the archaeological evidence of

this late habitation, there is also contemporary writ-

ten evidence about the destruction of a particular

site in Leinster by the Anglo-Normans as late as the

end of the thirteenth century.

Despite the fact that surviving ringforts are so

numerous, many aspects of their function and chro-

nology still remain very much an enigma. The re-

mains of circular houses have been discovered in

two excavations, and they contained important evi-

dence of some of the occupations and crafts that

were carried out in these settlements. At Lisleagh 1

in County Cork, several circular structures were lo-

cated that measured 5 to 7 meters in diameter. In

one example, the buildings were arranged as a con-

joined pair in a ﬁgure-eight plan. Environmental

and artifactual evidence indicates that sheep farm-

ing, wool production, and the manufacture of bone

combs were among the more important aspects of

the economy at the Lisleagh site from the end of the

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451

sixth century to the end of the eighth century. The

other site with circular houses is located at the

northern end of Ireland, at Deer Park Farms in

County Antrim. There, a “raised” ringfort with a

height of 6 meters was caused by a prolonged occu-

pation of the site from the sixth to the tenth centu-

ries. Altogether, twenty circular wooden structures,

all between 5 and 8 meters in diameter, were found

throughout the occupation levels of this important

site. Among the ﬁve that could be identiﬁed as

houses was an impressive double-walled house

some 7 meters in diameter (similar to the Lisleagh

houses) with evidence of a bedding area and internal

screens surviving within it. In the bedding area, a

small brooch stylistically dated to

A.D. 800 was lo-

cated. Souterrains or underground passages were

usually made with dry stone walls and a roof, then

covered by the earth that had been excavated in

order to construct the original trench dug to con-

struct the passage. In many cases the souterrains are

found located either close to or actually within ring-

forts. There is one dendrochronological date from

the timbers of a fairly untypical wooden example at

the ringfort of Coolcrans, County Fermanagh,

which produced a date in the early ninth century.

Broadly dated to the ﬁrst millennium, their original

function is not fully clear. They may have provided

cold storage for food or acted as refuges when a set-

tlement came under attack.

The other major type of defended enclosure of

this period is the crannog, an occupation site on an

island situated in a lake, which is either natural or

built on artiﬁcial foundations. Recent archaeologi-

cal research has estimated that around two thousand

examples were constructed in Ireland, but most are

found concentrated in the “Drumlin Belt” in the

northern half of the island and especially in the

Lakeland area of the northwest. These crannogs are

being studied as part of a Lake Settlement research

project carried out by the Discovery Programme, an

archaeological research company entirely funded by

the Heritage Council. The origin of the crannogs is

found in the prehistoric period, but they were both

constructed and occupied throughout the medieval

period and afterward. As with the ringfort, only a

small number have been scientiﬁcally excavated, but

all the evidence to date indicates that in the Early

Medieval period they were defended homesteads

occupied by the wealthier elements of society. Some

of them, such as Lagore in County Meath, were

sites of royal status. At Moynagh Lough, in the

same county, compelling evidence indicates that

this crannog was an important center for ornamen-

tal metalwork production and other skilled crafts, as

well as being a traditional farming unit.

There are also other settlement sites of generally

a prehistoric provenance that have evidence of sus-

tained occupation during the Early Medieval peri-

od. In particular, the promontory forts of Dalkey Is-

land in County Dublin, Dunbeg in County Kerry,

and Larrybane in County Antrim were all reinhabit-

ed, even if only as temporary refuges in the many

uncertain times of this era. Finally, there undoubt-

edly were settlements either without enclosures or

with very ﬂimsy and partial enclosures that have

been difﬁcult to identify archaeologically. With the

help of aerial photography and increasingly sophisti-

cated remote sensing techniques some of these have

been tentatively identiﬁed on the landscape. In-

deed, some of the Early Medieval law tracts mention

the existence of rural nucleated settlements occu-

pied by the unfree members of Irish society (those

people who were both economically and legally de-

pendent on a particular lord). These may have con-

sisted of a small cluster of farmhouses with associat-

ed outbuildings arranged without any formal

organization or layout. Such settlements in upland

areas may only have been occupied at particular

times of the year, as part of a transhumant system

of agriculture.

Archaeologists are also attempting to under-

stand the complexities of past landscapes by viewing

them as a whole, thereby getting away from the

focus on individual sites that drove much previous

research. Utilizing aerial photography and other

prospecting techniques, some attempt has been

made to examine the layout of ﬁelds and other asso-

ciated enclosures that are thought to date to this pe-

riod. Two such research projects are in the valley of

the River Barrow in the southeast of the country

and in the foreshore area of Strangford Lough in

County Down.

ARTIFACTUAL EVIDENCE

As regards archaeological evidence, the Early Medi-

eval period in Ireland was largely devoid of ceramic

artifacts, as was true for much of contemporary

western and northern Britain. One of the few excep-

7: EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

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tions to this are the surviving sherds of A, B, D, and

E ware that were luxury imports from France and

the Mediterranean. These date from the ﬁfth to the

eighth centuries

A.D. The only indigenous pottery

type, which was originally called souterrain ware be-

cause of its association with these structures, is now

better known as early native ware or early historic

ware. It is a coarse handmade pottery that has been

mainly found on both ecclesiastical and secular sites

in the northeast of the country, especially in the two

counties of Antrim and Down. There is also some

limited evidence of other native, coarse, grass-

tempered wares at ecclesiastical sites such as Reask

in County Kerry. It would seem, therefore, that

wood was used as an alternative to ceramics in this

period, as shown from the number of such ﬁnds

from crannog excavations.

There are also many small, inscribed stone mon-

uments surviving from this period, which are best

described as artifacts in their own right. The earliest

stone markers generally bear an ogham inscription

on them (the oldest form of writing script in Ire-

land). They mainly date from the fourth to the sev-

enth centuries

A.D., are found mainly in the south-

west of the country, and are often associated with

souterrains. There are also grave slabs, which are

found in most monastic sites, usually in the form of

ﬂat stones bearing an inscription for a prayer for a

particular person along with an inscribed cross.

They are generally dated to the end of the Early Me-

dieval period, from the ninth to the twelfth centu-

ries. Undoubtedly the most famous of these deco-

rated stone monuments are the freestanding stone

high crosses, the great majority of which are found

in monastic sites (ﬁg. 1). They are often elaborately

carved, with biblical scenes on their main faces and

abstract designs on their sides. There is some evi-

dence that they were originally painted in vivid col-

ors. Most of them are dated from the ninth and

tenth centuries. Some of the most impressive exam-

ples, possibly still surviving in their original loca-

tion, are found at Monasterboice in County Louth.

It is in this period that, arguably, many of the

ﬁnest metalwork artifacts ever produced in Ireland

were made. These were fashioned out of bronze, to

which precious metals were added. Many of them

were manufactured in royal sites such as Tara in

County Meath (ﬁg. 2) or in the great monasteries

such as Clonmacnoise in County Offaly, on the

Fig. 1. Ninth-century Celtic high cross. © KEVIN SCHAFER/

CORBIS. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.

shores of the river Shannon. Some were made in

ringforts, such as the beautiful and unique seventh-

century gold “wren” brooch found at Garryduff in

County Cork. Others were created on crannogs

such as Moynagh Lough in County Meath. Until

the seventh century many of these metalwork arti-

facts were still being broadly inﬂuenced by the earli-

er Celtic La Tène style. But from the middle of the

seventh century, the increasing inﬂuence of conti-

nental-European and Anglo-Saxon styles intro-

duced many new motifs and techniques. These can

be seen in the Derrynaﬂan paten of the eighth cen-

tury and the Tara brooch that was made c. 700. The

metalwork of the following four centuries was inﬂu-

enced by the Vikings, with an increased use of silver,

as is shown by the large numbers of pennanular

(nearly circular) and kite-shaped brooches. In the

period leading up to the Anglo-Norman invasion

EARLY CHRISTIAN IRELAND

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453

the construction and repair of many reliquaries took

place, including the Cross of Cong.

The evidence for other industries of this period

is less apparent, although considerable research has

taken place on water-powered mills, both horizon-

tally and vertically driven, and on their ponds and

other associated features, which date from the sev-

enth century onward. On the foreshore below Nen-

drum Monastery, on Mahee Island in Strangford

Lough, County Down, there are the remains of

three horizontal tidal mills. These were excavated in

1999 and 2000 and date to the seventh and eighth

centuries. The mills are of great importance, being

the earliest archaeologically dated examples of the

use of tidal power in Europe. Other interesting re-

search has targeted the woodworking expertise and

woodland management of the time. The expertise

of the Early Medieval Irish in wood construction is

exempliﬁed by the impressive wooden bridge exca-

vated at Clonmacnoise. Once used to cross the

River Shannon, the bridge measures 120 meters

Fig. 2. The Tara brooch, which is said to come from the royal site of Tara, County Meath, Ireland,

ninth century A.D. © ERICH LESSING/ART RESOURCE, NY. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.

long and 5 meters wide. Its structural oak timbers

were dated by dendrochronology to

A.D. 804.

THE VIKING AGE

The Early Medieval period underwent a profound

change with the coming of the Vikings at the end

of the eighth century. In the past their arrival has

been used to explain the decay and decline of some

aspects of the Irish church at that time. However,

modern scholarship has tended to see some of these

problems as being present within the church much

before the advent of the Vikings. Although Viking

raids undoubtedly harmed the more vulnerable mo-

nastic communities, attacks on monasteries were

not solely conﬁned to outsiders but were also car-

ried out by the indigenous Irish. The other point to

stress is that this phase lasted for less than ﬁfty years,

until the Vikings started spending winters in Ire-

land. This led to the construction of longphorts, or

defended harbors, for their ships. Most of these de-

fensive bases grew into Hiberno-Norse port towns,

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which were mainly located on the east coast. Two

such towns were Annagassan in County Louth, es-

tablished in

A.D. 841, and Dublin.

To the immediate west of Viking-Age Dublin,

at present-day Islandbridge-Kilmainham, the larg-

est Viking cemetery outside of Scandinavia was

found in the 1840s, when railways were being con-

structed. The cemetery has been dated by surviving

artifacts to the ninth century. Until recently this had

caused scholars to debate whether the original long-

phort, built c. 841, was located closer to this ceme-

tery and that the urban settlement of Dublin was es-

tablished later, around 917, at its present location,

farther east and closer to the mouth of the River Lif-

fey. But more recent archaeological excavations

have produced both radiocarbon dates and struc-

tures and artifacts that indicate a ninth-century set-

tlement at Temple Bar, in the center of the existing

city of Dublin. Excavations by Linzi Simpson have

shown that Dublin was strongly inﬂuenced by

Anglo-Saxon culture and society in Britain and was

intimately involved in the sociopolitical develop-

ments of Danelaw, the northeastern region of En-

gland that was centered upon the Viking city of

York.

The fusion of Irish and Viking cultures led to

the development of an important Hiberno-Norse

style that had an important inﬂuence on the art of

the period, metalwork, in particular. The archaeo-

logical record of the Hiberno-Norse towns is very

rich, especially as a result of sustained archaeological

excavations in Dublin and Waterford. To a lesser ex-

tent, Limerick, the only example of a Hiberno-

Norse town known on the west coast, has also yield-

ed a rich array of artifacts. Both Dublin and Water-

ford in this period were laid out with streets lined

by single-story mud-and-wattle rectangular houses.

Each had a central hearth with ﬁxed wooden bench-

es on either side where the inhabitants slept. Larger

dwelling houses were often accompanied by smaller

storehouses constructed in the same manner. The

many excavations have shown that these urban cen-

ters traded extensively with the rest of Viking-Age

Europe, as evidenced by the remains of the work-

shops and their products.

In Dublin, archaeological evidence from the

Wood Quay site on the southern quays of the city,

excavated by Patrick Wallace in the late 1970s,

shows that a stone wall was constructed around the

core of the nucleated settlement about 1100. This

replaced a large earthen embankment with a wood-

en palisade on top, which encircled the town from

the tenth century. Along the southern edge of the

river, docking facilities and buildings were con-

structed as the river silted up, with nine successive

waterfronts being identiﬁed archaeologically, dat-

ing from 900 to 1300. Subsequent changes in Dub-

lin have been revealed by a large number of excava-

tions both within and outside the medieval walls,

many taking place as a result of the redevelopment

of the historic core of the city.

Excavations within the stone walls of Waterford

by Maurice Hurley have uncovered about 20 per-

cent of the Viking and medieval occupation layers

there and have been especially valuable in putting

the ﬁnds from Hiberno-Norse Dublin into a much

broader context. The range and quality of the Vi-

king-Age ﬁnds from Dublin may arguably be more

impressive than those of Waterford, but Waterford

has the richer collection of architectural remains

from the High Middle Ages. These include four

sunken buildings from the late eleventh century and

stone-lined entrance passages to two additional

structures. This represents the greatest number of

such ﬁnds so far located in any Irish urban center.

Some limited archaeological evidence from Cork

and Limerick has provided insight into the Hi-

berno-Norse histories of those cities. In Limerick,

excavations on the southwestern portion of King’s

Island, at the lowest fording point across the River

Shannon, have revealed occupation layers and signs

of construction.

Although each of these Hiberno-Norse towns

obviously had a rural hinterland supplying them

with many of the commodities that were important

to their trading functions, the archaeological evi-

dence for Viking rural settlement is almost nonexis-

tent in Ireland, as is also largely the case in Britain.

There is, however, some place-name evidence both

in the vicinity of Dublin and Waterford to suggest

that the extent of Norse settlement inland from the

ports has been largely understated. To reinforce this

conclusion, evidence of rural settlement came to

light in 2003 as a result of development-driven ex-

cavation in the “Dyﬂinarskí,” the area of Hiberno-

Norse rural settlement around Dublin.

EARLY CHRISTIAN IRELAND

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455

CONCLUSION

In the twelfth century, ecclesiastical reform was

sweeping medieval Europe, so it was hardly surpris-

ing that these changes also affected Ireland. The

Irish church was ﬁnally organized into a hierarchical

system of parishes, dioceses, and archdioceses. As a

direct result of this reform, many of the monasteries

that had been such a mainstay of the Irish church,

and which had their origins in Irish society, gradual-

ly faded away. They were replaced by the houses of

the great Continental orders, as well as by the great

cathedrals and parish churches of the Anglo-

Norman colony. Of course, this change did not

happen immediately. Some Early Medieval

monasteries survived the initial Anglo-Norman in-

vasion only to decline as Anglo-Norman diocesan

authority grew increasingly stronger in the thir-

teenth century. In the secular world, it is also impor-

tant to realize that there were parts of Ireland, espe-

cially in the north and the west, that remained under

the control of indigenous Gaelic Irish families such

as the O’Conors and the O’Briens. In these areas

the settlement pattern of the Early Medieval period

probably survived and evolved for many years after

the fateful year of

A.D. 1169, when the Norman

conquest of Ireland began.

See also La Tène (vol. 2, part 6); Mills and Milling

Technology (vol. 2, part 7); Clonmacnoise (vol. 2,

part 7); Raths, Crannogs, and Cashels (vol. 2, part

7); Deer Park Farms (vol. 2, part 7); Viking Dublin

(vol. 2, part 7).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aalen, F. H. A., Kevin Whelan, and Matthew Stout, eds.

Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape. Cork, Ireland: Cork

University Press, 1997.

Clinton, Mark. The Souterrains of Ireland. Bray, Ireland:

Wordwell, 2001.

Edwards, Nancy. The Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland.

London: Batsford, 1990.

Fredengren, Christina. Crannogs: A Study of People’s Inter-

action with Lakes, with Particular Reference to Lough

Gara in the North-west of Ireland. Bray, Ireland:

Wordwell, 2002.

Harbison, Peter. Irish High Crosses: With the Figure Sculp-

tures Explained. Illustrations by Hilary Gilmore. Dro-

gheda, Ireland: Boyne Valley Honey Company, 1994.

Hughes, Kathleen, and Hamlin, Ann. The Modern Traveller

to the Early Irish Church. London: S. P. C. K., 1977.

Hurley, Maurice. “Late Viking Age Settlement in Waterford

City.” In Waterford History and Society. Edited by Wil-

liam Nolan and Thomas P. Power, pp. 49–72. Dublin:

Geography Publications, 1992.

Kelly, Fergus. Early Irish Farming: A Study Based Mainly on

the Law-texts of the 7th and 8th Centuries

A.D. Early Irish

Law Series, Vol. 4. Dublin: School of Celtic Studies,

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1997.

Monk, Michael A., and John Sheehan, eds. Early Medieval

Munster: Archaeology, History, and Society. Cork, Ire-

land: Cork University Press, 1998.

ó Crónín, Dáibhí. Early Medieval Ireland, 400–1200. Lon-

don: Longman, 1995.

Ryan, Michael, ed. Irish Archaeology Illustrated. Dublin:

Country House, 1994.

Simpson, Linzi. “Forty Years A-digging: A Preliminary Syn-

thesis of Archaeological Investigations in Medieval

Dublin.” In Medieval Dublin 1: Proceedings of the

Friends of Medieval Dublin Symposium 1999. Edited by

Séan Duffy, pp. 11–68. Dublin: Four Courts Press,

2000.

Stout, Matthew. The Irish Ringfort. Irish Settlement Studies

No. 5. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997.

Wallace, Patrick. “The Archaeological Identity of the Hi-

berno-Norse Town.” The Journal of the Royal Society of

Antiquaries of Ireland 122 (1992): 35–66.

ERRY BARRY

■

CLONMACNOISE

Saint Ciarán’s monastery of Clonmacnoise (pro-

nounced Klon-mack-noise), founded in the middle

of the sixth century

A.D., is situated on the east bank

of the River Shannon at a point near the center of

Ireland, where the Shannon meets the Slí Mhór (the

great road) on the Eiscir Riada. The location of the

monastery at this crossing point undoubtedly con-

tributed to the fact that the monastery ﬂourished

over the following six centuries. It was, as Conleth

Manning has described, not only a great monastic

center but also a place of learning, trade, and crafts-

manship. In the light of the accumulated results of

excavations conducted since the late 1970s, one can

now legitimately argue that Clonmacnoise was also

an urban settlement.

Within the core of the monastic site, excava-

tions took place on the sites of the three High

Crosses, which were located to the north, south,

and west of the cathedral. Evidence was found for

7: EARLY MIDDLE AGES/MIGRATION PERIOD

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Fig. 1. Early medieval road at Clonmacnoise, Ireland. COURTESY OF HEATHER KING. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.

occupation in this area prior to A.D. 700, followed

by a change of use to burial in subsequent centuries.

It would appear that on completion of a new cathe-

dral in

A.D. 909 King Flann Sinna Mac Maelsech-

naill reordered the area to the west of the cathedral

by removing older wooden monuments and replac-

ing them with the carved stone crosses.

Two excavations were carried out to the south-

west of the monastic site. The ﬁrst was located

about 150 meters from the modern enclosing wall

of the old burial ground. It was conducted after the

discovery of a hoard of Hiberno-Norse coins be-

neath the football ﬁeld of the local national school.

The second excavation occurred when the school

was enlarged. Although both sites were thought to

be within the medieval monastic enclosure, there

was no evidence for prolonged activity. The reason

for the lack of settlement evidence was explained in

1999, when the enclosing early medieval ditch was

located within 100 meters of the monastic site and

about 50 meters from the earlier excavations.

Excavations on the site of the new visitor center,

immediately west of the monastic core, produced

evidence for four phases of early medieval activity.

Paths, circular structures, a kiln, and evidence of

ironworking were uncovered. Subsequent monitor-

ing of trenches dug for utilities in the adjacent area

revealed a continuation of this settlement evidence.

Recent excavation on the sloping ground above the

Shannon to the north of the visitor center has

shown that an extensive area was utilized exclusively

for early medieval ironworking. Closer to the Shan-

non, further settlement features were located. This

excavation conﬁrmed the results of geophysical

prospecting (the use of noninvasive techniques to

identify features below the surface) carried out in

the late 1990s.

Dive survey and excavation in the Shannon to

the north of the Norman castle revealed substantial

remains of a wooden bridge dating to c.

A.D. 804,

together with eleven dugout canoes and various

metalwork ﬁnds. Excavations in the northwest cor-

ner of the New Graveyard revealed four main phases

CLONMACNOISE

ANCIENT EUROPE

457

of activity. The uppermost strata were of the late

eleventh century and the twelfth century, character-

ized by ﬂagged and cobbled areas, pits, well shafts

and postholes, below which was the main occupa-

tion phase, dating to the ninth and tenth century.

The main feature of this period is a metaled road or

street more than 18.5 meters in length and about

3 meters in width (ﬁg. 1) running southward from

the low-lying callows adjacent to the Shannon to-

ward the core of the monastic site. On either side

of the road there was evidence for round houses

about 7 meters in diameter, subrectangular struc-

tures, corn-drying kilns, hearths for cooking and

metalworking, a possible boat slip, a quay, and a

number of other features. There is also an earlier

phase dating to the seventh and eighth century con-

sisting mainly of stake holes, spreads of burnt soils

and charcoal. Monitoring of new graves indicates

that settlement extended throughout the area now

occupied by the New Graveyard.

Over six thousand objects have been found, and

evidence survives for the working of iron, bone,

bronze, lignite, glass, silver, and gold. A knife han-

dle with an ogham inscription suggests literacy

among the bone workers. Coins dating to the Hi-

berno-Norse period, together with imported pot-

tery, indicate trade. The quantity of animal bone re-

trieved from the site has indicated that Clonmac-

noise was provisioned in a manner similar to urban

centers in Britain and Ireland.

The criteria by which one identiﬁes a town has

been the subject of much discussion by archaeolo-

gists, but the suggestion put forward here is to use

J. Bradley’s deﬁnitions of a medieval town and a

monastic town. In relation to the latter, Bradley

noted that “the monastic town is an enclosed settle-

ment, typiﬁed by having a major group of ecclesias-

tical buildings.” Because The Annals of Clonmac-

noise records that Ciaran was buried in the Eaglias

Beag (the little church), one can deduce that within

seven months of the foundation of the monastery

there may have been two churches on the site. An

enclosing boundary is recorded in the closing years

of the sixth century. Pilgrimage began as early as the

seventh century, and pilgrims and guests were

lodged in a guesthouse. The Church of Saint

Finghin, the Nun’s Church, and the Round Tower

are mentioned in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

As a center of commerce, Clonmacnoise hosted one

of the great fairs of Ireland. Paved roads were being

constructed in the eleventh century, and the extent

of the “town” of Clonmacnoise is evident in the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when 47 houses

were burned near the abbot’s lodging and 105

houses burned in the “town.”

While similar historical facts can be paralleled at

some of the other great early Irish monasteries, such

as Kells, Armagh, or Durrow, it is only at Clonmac-

noise that fairly extensive archaeological excavation

has provided the material evidence necessary to ful-

ﬁll the remaining criteria for a town. This includes

proof of settlement complexity, specialized areas for

craft working, habitation and burial in deﬁned areas,

streets, trade, and enclosure. All of these features

date from the

A.D. 600s to the late twelfth century.

The documentary evidence for a town at Clon-

macnoise is largely concentrated on the eleventh

and twelfth centuries, but evidence from the excava-

tions points to a much earlier urban settlement. This

afﬁrms an account possibly written in the eighth

century that “a shining and saintly city grew up in

that place in honour of Saint Ciaran, and the name

of the city was Clonmacnois.”

See also Early Christian Ireland (vol. 2, part 7); Viking

Dublin (vol. 2, part 7).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bennet, Isabel, ed. Excavations 1998: Summary Accounts of

Archaeological Excavations in Ireland. Bray, Ireland:

Wordwell, 2000.

———. Excavations 1997: Summary Accounts of Archaeolog-