Ruairi O’Baoill to lead Friends of the Derry Walls May lecture 'The Big Dig Revisited!'

Derry Dig Director Ruairi O’Baoill will give a talk this Monday night on the findings following the successful Derry Walls archaeological dig that took place in the city in September.

The Friends of The Derry Walls May lecture will take place in the Lecture Theatre MD108 (Old Building) on University of Ulster Magee campus.

During September 2024, a very successful two-week community excavation, directed by Ruairí ÓBaoill, took place in Derry. The dig was part of the Centre for Community Archaeology (CCA), Queen’s University Belfast’s CAPNI programme of community engagement with archaeology and heritage.

The programme was funded by a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The CCA’s community-based partners in the city where the Friends of the Derry Walls Queen’s had worked with the late Mark Lusby on excavations at Boom Hall and Lumen Christi and -as part of CAPNI- we were putting in place plans with him and Niall McCaughan (Chair of Friends of Derry Walls) to return to the city to conduct the September excavation, before Mark’s untimely death in April 2024.

The CCA excavation was of a reconnaissance nature and took place just outside the historic 17th century city walls at Nailor’s Row, between Double Bastion and Royal Bastion, to assess the condition of the archaeological resource in this part of the city.

Over the two weeks of the excavation, more than one hundred adult volunteers and nearly two hundred school children from local schools participated in the dig under the supervision of the CCA archaeologists.

The excavation uncovered interesting social history and material culture relating to life in this important Irish urban settlement over the last few centuries, with masonry remains and road surfaces dating back to the late-18th century being revealed.

Artefacts retrieved include much Post-Medieval pottery (especially earthenware’s), coins, clay tobacco pipes, metal work and personal effects such as buttons, styli, marbles and a holy medal.

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Although the excavation finished before reaching the level of the extra-mural ditch that once surrounded most of the 17th century city walls, artefacts from the period- 17th century English pottery from North Devon and Staffordshire and a lead musket ball- suggest that this important feature remains preserved safely under the ground for future archaeologists to investigate.

Ruairi returns to give us the low down on their dig. The dig itself generated much local, national and international publicity, at the time. Ruairi will go over their dig finds as well as set them into the context of our historic Walls and the history of Ireland.

Ruairí Ó Baoill is an archaeologist with the Centre for Community Archaeology (CCA), Queen’s University Belfast. He has more than 40 years field experience working on excavations all over Ireland. Ruairí has served on the Board of the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland (IAI), is a founder member and the first Chair of the Irish Post-Medieval Archaeology Group (IPMAG) and he was President of the Ulster Archaeological Society (UAS) from 2016-2022. Ruairí is the author of Island City: The Archaeology of Derry~Londonderry (2013) published by April Sky Design (Colourpoint Books) for the Northern Ireland Environment Agency: Built Heritage and Derry City Council.

Tickets to the event are available through Eventbrite.

The Lecture will take place on Monday, May 12 at 7:30pm in The Minor Hall, Magee, Ulster University. This venue is kindly hosted by Ulster University, Magee.