Ireland

Anthropological studies in Ireland have a relatively short history. Prior to 1985 only two studies of large groups of skeletal human remains had been carried out. These studies – Howells’s (1941) analysis of 200 Early Christian and Mediaeval burials from Gallen Priory, Co. Offaly, and McLoughlin’s (1938) study of 372 Early Christian burials from Castleknock, Co. Dublin, concentrated mainly on metrical analysis and morphological traits of the skull. There are detailed skull and long bone measurements presented, along with various skeletal indices. The Castleknock report in particular deals with groups of individual bones rather than individual skeletons. The report on Gallen Priory places a lot of emphasis on skull types, although data for dental pathology is also given. A large part of the discussion of the reports concentrates on the racial origins of the population. Palaeopathology was barely mentioned, but age and sex ratio of the populations were provided. From the 1950s onwards skeletal reports consisted mainly of short statements by Professors of

Anatomy appended to the archaeological report, listing the number of individuals, their age and sex. Archaeologists assumed that this was all that could be done with human remains, and took little interest in them. The remains of humans from past populations were not considered part of the archaeology. In fact, until the late 1980s, when skeletons were found they were generally considered to interfere with the archaeology. The potential of human skeletal studies was highlighted at a meeting of the Association of

Young Irish Archaeologists in 1972 (Scott 1973) at which Dr Maura Delaney gave a paper on the subject. This aroused the interest of archaeologists and resulted in a detailed study of 88 skeletons from Tintern Abbey, Co. Wexford (O’Donnabháin 1985). This was the first major skeletal report from Ireland with a detailed analysis of human burials covering demography, dentition, palaeopathology, etc. Since that time several reports for the assemblages from individual sites have been pro-

duced. A talk to the Irish Association of Professional Archaeologists (now the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland) by the present author in 1996 emphasized the need for osteoarchaeologist involvement at an early stage in the excavation process. Over a period of time the presence of at least one if not more osteoarchaeologists on cemetery excavations, or even

excavations where only one or two skeletons were found, became the norm. A detailed skeletal report also became standard, although the upsurge in infrastructure development in Ireland from the 1990s onwards meant that there was too much work to cope with for the few osteoarchaeologists working and there was little time for research or an overall assessment of the various individual reports produced. In fact, to date, the only review of the data was carried out by Power in 1993 using published data to attempt to reconstruct the health of Irish prehistoric populations. The amount of skeletal material and data from the analysis has increased tremendously since then, but as yet it has not been synthesized, although some effort was made to include Irish data in Roberts and Cox’s (2003) work on Health and Disease in Britain. The National Roads Authority was established in 1993 and came into effect in 1994 as Ireland was about to embark on a widespread and ambitious programme of infrastructural road building. This meant the development of large tracts of land, all of which had to be assessed for archaeology with excavations carried out where necessary. This generated a lot of work for osteoarchaeologists both on site and in the post-excavation analysis. All the newly qualified osteoarchaeologists had almost full employment for a number of years; however, it was felt that research in the bioarchaeology field was lacking at this stage. In particular there was very little interest in or analysis of post-mediaeval remains, including those from the famine period, 1845-49, and 19th-century crypt burials. Most of the short reports published between the 1950s and the 1980s concentrated on prehistoric burials or early mediaeval burials. In 1999 the Heritage Council of Ireland, at the request of the National Museum of Ireland,

commissioned a report on all aspects of human remains. The report, published in 2002, examined all the issues concerned with burial archaeology, including ethical and legal issues, and consulted widely with different sections of the community, including archaeologists, osteoarchaeologists, institutions such as the National Museum of Ireland, and representatives of the main churches (O’Sullivan et al. 2002). An important point raised in the report was the shortage of osteoarchaeologists at that time, and the lack of osteoarchaeological training in Ireland. Most individuals with this career in mind followed structured courses mainly at British universities, although it was possible to carry out independent research in the field at Irish universities. In 2001 the first post in the field of bioarchaeology had been established at University College, Cork (UCC) when Barra O’Donnabháin was appointed. Since 2004 Dr O’Donnabháin has been running a taught master’s course in bioarchaeology, with his students carrying out a small research project as part of the course. Research projects are also carried out at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) under the supervision of Dr Eileen Murphy, senior lecturer in osteoarchaeology. Osteoarchaeology forms part of the BSc and BSc (Hons) in Applied Archaeology at the Institute of Technology, Sligo.