OPINION (AN COLÚN): The things left behind by our South Offaly ancestors

THE Irish Post-Medieval Archaeology Group held its annual conference in Birr over the weekend, the first annual conference the group had held since Covid took control of our lives three years ago. One of the speakers during the weekend echoed what we were all thinking when he said it felt fantastic to be participating in conferences once again after the disruptive and strange world of the pandemic.

There were several excellent talks during the three days. One of the highlights was when local man Denis Shine (of the Irish Archaeology Field School) took us on a guided tour of Birr. Denis talked to us about a large “ringfort” just outside Birr, near Kennedy's Cross and the N52, in the townland of Ballindown (which comes from the Irish “Baile an Dúnaigh” meaning “Town of the Fort”). I have heard a number of people talk about this site in recent months and it poses intriguing questions which it would be wonderful to get the answers to, questions such as, Was it a typical ringfort or was it used for ceremonial occasions or occasions of ecclesiastical and political importance? Was it perhaps used during the groundbreaking Synod of 697AD? Denis said he had a look at the site and it's surrounded by a very deep ditch, deeper than most ringforts. He feels that it would be worth digging an archaeological trench in the location in the hope of answering some of its questions.

He also told us about the Dowris Hoard, a very important Bronze Age find which was discovered just up the road in the Fivealley area. It had not dawned on me, until Denis mentioned the fact, that this big-name find took place so close to my home, and I was excited by this realisation. I had seen some years ago some of the Dowris artefacts on display in the National Museum in Dublin (a wonderful museum which I strongly recommend you visit if you haven't done so already - an essential place to visit for any Irish person, a place which reveals the magnificent heritage of our wonderful country). The Dowris artefacts were accidentally discovered in the 1820s when two men were digging trenches for potatoes on the shore of Lough Coura (which has dried up; today it's a damp marshy area. In the 1820s the lake covered 100 acres of open water and was 172 foot deep). Thomas Cooke (a very important historian of the South Offaly region), in his 1850 account, says one of the men was called Ed Hennessy. There were 200 objects in the hoard, most of them made of bronze, and they are housed in the National Museum of London as well as the National Museum of Dublin. Scholars think Dowris was a ritual deposit, connected with something of a religious nature. We don't know if it was deposited in one go or in a series. Some think it was a series of deposits over a very long time and on each occasion the items were deliberately put into Lough Coura. Perhaps these Bronze Age people (I'm almost tempted to say Bronze Age Birr people, because they lived so near!) were trying to propitiate the presiding deity of the lake. Perhaps they were Celts. If so, then it's interesting to know that ancient Celts believed that a waterway of some kind could lead them to the underworld. For this reason, they invested rivers and lakes with a sense of the sacred. It's very possible then to envisage these ancient people depositing these precious objects as an offering to the presiding deity.

The final phase of the Irish Late Bronze Age (900 to 600 BC) is named after the hoard. The find contained javelins, axes, spear heads, ovoid bronzes, horns and cauldrons. The number of objects was “enough to fill a cart”. Thomas Cooke sold some of the items to the British Museum and Lord Rosse installed some other items in Birr Castle. There are 111 artefacts in the Dublin Museum today including 41 spear heads, 43 axes, 24 trumpets / horns, 44 crotals, three buckets and five swords. Crotals are bronze cylinders in a teardrop shape with a pebble inside. They were perhaps used as a form of rattle. These rattles were used on horse-drawn vehicles and were used to warn other vehicles of your approach. Typically, they were attached to the horse's collar. (It should be mentioned that not everyone agrees with this. One scholar thought they could be representations of a bull's scrotum and associated with a fertility cult! It's been pointed out that the trumpets / horns might have represented bulls' horns and they would have made a deep bellowing sound when blown. There are 24 horns in the hoard and their sound would have borne a resemblance to the didgeridoo played by the Australian aboriginal people).

Denis also pointed out that during the 19th Century Birr had a vibrant alcohol manufacturing industry. There were three distilleries and one brewery. The brewery and one of the distilleries were located on Castle Street. The distillery located near Elmgrove Bridge was burned down in 1889. The Elmgrove enterprise had been in operation for 84 years, but not much is known about its history. It was a substantial factory, with a reported annual output of 200,000 gallons. The Coronation Street actor Martin Dobson bought the Elmgrove Distillery in the 1990s, but sadly he passed away and the place was sold. It's now a derelict building with broken windows and holes in the roof.