Thousands of years of heritage, but the clock is ticking for these priceless Dingle Peninsula sites
The EU-funded Cherish Project is excavating and documenting human habitation on Doon Point, a toe of land on the Dingle Peninsula in Kerry, even as it is being eroded by the wild Atlantic. Picture: The Cherish Project
A sharp cracking sound rips through the air for the second time that morning. Archaeologists excavating at Doon Point, west of Dingle in Co Kerry, know to look towards Sybil Head, or Ceann Sibéal, where another rockfall is cascading down the cliffs into the wild Atlantic below.
Coastal erosion is taking place before our very eyes. The headland, once the location for a Star Wars film set, is gradually falling into the sea.
“If you were in any doubt, there is the proof,” says Muiris Uada of Archaeology Plan which is working with the Cherish Project to retrieve as much archaeological evidence as possible from this spectacular wind-blown promontory fort before it falls into the sea.
“It is a race against the tide — and the sea always wins,” says John O’Keeffe, CEO of national archaeological research body, the Discovery Programme.
The wind is hurling rain with a force that makes work exceptionally difficult, but this is also a race against the clock. Just two of the ten days of excavation remain, but the results already look promising.
“It’s something quite exciting,” O’Keeffe says. “There are not a lot of artefacts but they have found a really robust set of structures. It is a whole system of controls on the headland. They must have been part of a community that called this place home. This is a place of work and labour and all the things that go with it.”
It is not yet possible to say whether the cluster of huts, so ideally located to patrol the sea below, is a village associated with the 15th-century Ferriter’s Castle a few hundred metres away, or much earlier. The people who built these thick-walled houses may have done so in the Iron Age, some 2,000 years ago.
Post-excavation analysis will provide a date but, for now, there is excitement to see paved flagstones emerging from a layer showing definite signs of habitation. Someone quips that it looks like a patio. It really does — the cut stones are testament to the care and effort taken to line the entrance to what was once a home.
The walls are about 1m thick and a huge lintel stone that was once over a door is also evident.
“It would have taken tremendous labour to build it, perhaps done with metal tools or ones made of antler and whale bone. This is the effort of many people,” John O’Keeffe continues. “The fishing traps and fish weirs that might have given us a better view of what was going on would have been washed out into the sea, but it must have been worthwhile to live here, on this toe of Ireland poking out into the Atlantic.”
That is the perfect description. Seen from the air, Doon Point is a long, narrow strip of land that extends over 500m into the sea below. It commands stunning views that take in the Blasket Islands, Sybil Head, and Brandon Mountain. Centuries of history are visible if you cast your eye across the landscape, from the ruins of the 15th-century Ferriter stronghold to a Napoleonic-era tower on the horizon.
The Irish name for the headland, Dún an Fheirtéaraigh, holds within it a clue to its past. Dún means fort and this is one of 95 coastal promontory forts on the Dingle peninsula. There are more than 500 dotted around the Irish coastline, and all of them are at increasing risk of coastal erosion.
However, what is of interest to the Cherish Project — an EU-funded programme aimed at understanding the past, present, and near future impacts of climate change — is what lies beneath. Sandra Henry, lead research archaeologist on the project, takes up the story.
“The reason we are doing this dig is that we are trying to garner as much information as possible as these places are under increasing risk of erosion, cliff collapse, and rising sea levels.” The work will also cast valuable light on promontory forts, which are little understood. Only about 10 of the many forts around the coast have been excavated so these are relatively enigmatic structures.
“There are a number of theories about how they functioned,” says Henry. “They are considered defensive; adapted by humans to cut off the promontory from the hinterland behind. They command a great view of the land around. Potentially, what you are looking at is a form of maritime control of trade networks.”
Doon Point would certainly have provided an exceptional vantage point of the sea and its many inlets. The castle on the fort, reduced to little more than a stump, is testament to activity in medieval times, but the team believes people were living and working here several centuries before that.
“In the past, there were huge maritime connections,” explains Henry.
These forts are a pan-European phenomenon all along the Atlantic seaboard, in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Iberian peninsula. At Dalkey Island promontory fort in Dublin, remains of E-ware pottery, which was manufactured in Western France in the early medieval period, provide evidence of early trade across Europe.
“Excavation holds the potential to reveal the very exciting use of this headland over thousands of years,” says Henry.
THE dig has focused on the huts, but drone mapping, geophysical, and resistivity surveys have pinpointed other areas of interest too. Just west of the castle, a trench has been cut into what was once a defensive ditch.
It has filled with rainwater overnight and one of the site supervisors, Philippa Barry, is bailing it out with a 2l milk carton that has been cut across the top for the purpose. She is one of a number of archaeologists with Archaeology Plan which has been contracted to help the Cherish Project excavate as much as possible in such a short timespan.
Despite the whipping wind and the end-of-May rain, work continues. It is challenging, to say the least but, for archaeologists more used to excavating ahead of commercial development, it is a welcome change to take part in a research dig.
“We are so used to seeing just the shadows of things as we are so often excavating ahead of development on land that has already been well-ploughed,” says Sam Hughes.
Lisa O’Rourke, Jordan Hanson, and Muiris Uada agree. The hut they are excavating has been undisturbed for centuries. We’re talking during a tea break while trying, unsuccessfully, to find shelter from the slanting rain. There is talk of what has been found — “it’s exciting,” says Jostein Groenaas — and also a discussion of the effects of coastal erosion which are devastatingly clear.
Edward Pollard, a maritime archaeologist with the Discovery Programme, explains that the site has eroded considerably since it was surveyed in 1982. One of the huts has completely fallen into the sea. It adds urgency to the need to excavate but, for now, the funding will cover no more than two weeks.
Siobhan Ruddy, another site supervisor, notes that the site has huge potential but they have had time to, literally, just scratch the surface.
Having said that, the Cherish Project has used every resource at its disposal to gather as much information about this headland as is humanly possible. The National Monuments Service and Geological Survey have been on site. Local artist Deirdre McKenna has visited to record the dig while Jimmy Lenehan has double-checked the spoil heaps with a metal detector. He found coins dating to the 1960s and '70s, lost during a headland picnic, perhaps.
The Cherish Project has also been particularly keen to draw on the rich lore and depth of knowledge of the local community. Local poet and archaeologist Simon Ó Faoláin has joined the dig as a volunteer because he has a great interest in Piaras Feiritéar (1600-1653), the poet, harpist and Gaelic lord who once lived in the ruined castle.
He also brings the topography to life by pointing out the sea stacks which are evocatively called the raven (An Fiach) and the raven’s mother (Máthair an Fhiaigh). To the south, during excavations in the 1980s at Ferriter’s Cove, Peter C Woodman discovered late-Mesolithic tools which were used by some of the last foragers and first farmers of the Dingle Peninsula.
The cove is also remarkable because the most exotic things wash up on its shores. Ó Faoláin found a sea bean (Dioclea reflexa), a tropical sea-borne seed that had come all the way from the Caribbean.
Back on the rain-drenched headland, he recalls Piaras Feiritéar, one of the foremost poets of the 17th century and the last of the Ferriter lineage to rule the Blasket Islands. The chieftain fled to the island during the Catholic Confederacy rebellion of 1641 and the poem he was said to have composed while hiding in a cave survives in the folk tradition.
Ó Faoláin recites it in Irish and then offers an English translation. This version comes from Thomas Kinsella’s translation in :
RTÉ and TG4 video journalist Seán Mac an tSíthigh also recites that poem while talking to Linda Shine, the Discovery Programme’s outreach officer. She is recording the “wonder tales” he has collected from his grandparents and locals Seámus Éoinín Feiritéar and Donncha O Corráin (known as Clog) while growing up in the area.
He points out a lintel stone on the ruined castle which was said to be the door to Piaras’s stable where he kept seven magical horses. One of them could jump really high, another was extremely strong; another was very swift, and the black mare who could gallop on water spirited him across the sea to the Blasket Islands when he was cornered by Cromwell’s soldiers.
The stories are enchanting, adding colour, meaning, and significance to this magnificent landscape. Down through the centuries, Piaras Feiritéar has assumed a sort of local superhero status. As a child, Mac an tSíthigh heard many stories about this hero warrior, chieftain, gifted poet, harpist, talented swordsman, and great sailor. His castle was renowned for its hospitality with music, poetry, succulent joints of meat, and the very best wine. It was the ultimate party house.
That fine wine and the story it reveals of Dingle’s booming trade — both legal and illicit — has been inscribed on the landscape with such placenames as Wine Strand, Faill an Fhíona (Wine Cliff) and Carraig an Fhíona (Wine Rock).
Lore, of course, is not the same as fact — but it can contain a grain of truth that might enlighten or direct further scientific inquiry. For instance, Mac an tSíthigh recorded the placename Faill an Ghalláin (the cliff of the standing stone) while collecting material which he put into an MPhil on the relationship between placenames and place lore at UCC. No one, however, could recall a standing stone ever being in the vicinity.
It was an unexpected thrill, then, when one of the on-site archaeologists discovered a drawing of what looks like a standing stone in a 19th-century document. More investigation is needed, but it shows that clues can point to potential areas of investigation that may otherwise go unnoticed.
It’s interesting, too, to note that Mac an tSíthigh found the very cave where Piaras was said to have hidden from his enemies. Scart Phiarais (Piaras’s Cave) is perched perilously on the side of a cliff on the Blasket Island, with a goat path leading down to it: “You have to crawl in on your belly. It’s about 8ft high and 8ft wide. Inside on the ceiling, there is a constant drip, just like in the poem.” While fanciful, it is also tantalising to note that the real cave could accommodate the complicated logistics featured in a story Mac an tSíthigh heard from his grandfather. When Cromwell’s soldiers discovered his hiding place and went to capture him, there was room for only one person at a time to come around a large rocky outcrop to get to the entrance.
Mac an tSíthigh continues: “As they came around the corner, Piaras was sitting at the mouth of his cave kicking them off the cliff. He was said to have killed about 100 of them.”
In real life, Piaras Feiritéar was seized while on his way to agree surrender terms and hanged publicly in 1653.
Back at Dennis Curran’s farmyard, archaeologist Beannán Jones is sieving samples of the soil that has come from the dig. He’s looking for artefacts that might have been missed — beads, shards of pottery or glass — and pieces of charcoal or seeds that would yield more information about the site.
He thinks the promontory fort is a very interesting site because it has many phases of activity, from the early settlement of the huts to the medieval activity in the castle.
Extreme weather events have put this site at risk. There is no doubt about that. Farmer Dennis Curran spells that out in irrefutable detail. He has lived in Ballyoughteragh all of his life and he has never seen weather take such a toll on the landscape. In the last 20 years, he estimates that about half an acre of the promontory fort has fallen into the sea.
He has noted rising sea levels too. Rocks that were once visible are now covered by rising tides. There has also been an increase in the number of rockfalls.
“A good bit fell this year,” he says. “If anyone was there [near Sybil Head], they would be gone. Tourists go up to the top and they don’t realise how dangerous it is.”
Like the other locals, he has provided the Cherish Project with stories but more than that, access to his land. They can’t thank him enough for giving them the opportunity to explore this uncharted place. The level of survival of archaeological evidence is unusual because this area has never been ploughed, although you can see that stone from the castle has been incorporated into some of the houses in the vicinity.
Either way, this dig is exceptional because it has the potential to shed light on other Irish forts dotted around the coast.
Time is running out. Not due to coastal erosion but because the Cherish Project winds up in June 2023. Since it began in 2017, the EU-funded programme brought together four partners in Ireland and Wales: The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales; the Discovery Programme, Ireland; Aberystwyth University’s Dept of Geography and Earth Sciences; and the Geological Survey Ireland.
They have used a variety of techniques to study the cultural heritage of our sea and coast. They have travelled around Ireland and Wales to look at coastal wetlands, sand dunes and islands, estuarine abbeys and the hulks of remote shipwrecks.
“Some of the team have even spent weeks at sea surveying the seabed to reveal hidden landscapes and lost shipwrecks. We’ve also undergone hours of training to ensure our safety whilst working, and to ensure we’re up to date with the latest techniques,” a Cherish Project programme outlines.
The list of the project’s progress to date is listed on its website, cherishproject.eu/en. It’s impressive by any standards. In four years, even with the restrictions imposed by Covid-19, it has recorded 39 sites and 189 maritime sq km, surveyed eight shipwrecks, taken 6,025 archaeological aerial photographs, and taken 90m core samples.
It hopes those findings and ongoing monitoring will influence policy on climate change.
How that might happen was a question posed by Emeritus Professor of Geography at Maynooth University John Sweeney at an e-conference on coastal cultural heritage and climate change last month.
“We face a really growing threat from climate change,” he said. "Major losses are coming down the road."
One third of sea-level rises since 1880 happened in the last two decades, and we are facing issues that weren’t even contemplated 20 years ago. That means major damage to coral reefs. If the temperature rises by another two degrees, they will be gone.
Rising sea levels are putting salt marshes, dune systems, and other coastal features at risk. Storm surges and increased wave energy are adding to coastal erosion, he adds. If the extent to which human activity is contributing to storm changes in Ireland and the UK is still uncertain, it is clear when the storms come, they are more intense and rain-bearing.
The news, however, is not all bad. Archaeologist Beannán Jones makes that point. Extreme weather events are eroding our coastline, but, on the other hand, extreme heat and dry periods are also uncovering many new archaeological sites inland. It’s a question of focusing resources and spending them where they are most needed, he thinks.
The extremely dry and warm summer of 2018 revealed a number of marks on the landscape that suggested there were archaeological structures underneath. Pits, holes, and impressions in the soil retain moisture so when they are viewed from above they reveal crop marks, or the outline of potential archaeological finds. In July of that very dry summer, a henge, or circular structure, was outlined near the famous passage tomb site at Newgrange in Co Meath. Several other sites became visible, prompting the then culture minister Josepha Madigan to say that the results of aerial photographs were “simply awe-inspiring”.
Whatever happens, our view of the past is changing at an unprecedented rate. While the inland sites offer new opportunities, the risk posed to coastal sites is accelerating.
As Prof Sweeney says: “We have to get as much valuable information as we can from these [sites] before they disappear. We need to protect heritage information on where we came from, and how we got there, for future generations.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
