About
www.IrishMegaliths.org.uk
www.IrishMegaliths.org.uk
(also www.IrishMegaliths.org) is a domain originally part
of the Dissident Editions website (www.beyond-the-pale.co.uk),
and is greatly expanded from Anthony Weir's EARLY IRELAND - A
FIELD GUIDE, published in 1980 and very soon out of print.
The core of this site is the alphabetical
county-by-county gazetteer of Irish megaliths from that book,
enveloped by pages which put the types of monument into context.
A useful and compact introduction to some of the thousands of
fine stone monuments in Ireland, the continuing expansion of the
gazetteer owes much to the indefatigable researches of Tom FourWinds
(www.megalithomania.com)
whose photographs contribute greatly to the website, and of the
CD-ROM which has been developed
and expanded from it.
The 1980s were a time of almost complete reappraisal of Irish
field monuments from the Court-tombs of the fourth millennium
BCE to the carved Scripture Crosses of the Early Romanesque. During
this period too the beautiful and highly-accurate new 1:50,000
Ordnance Survey maps replaced the old inaccurate half-inch maps,
and roads in the Republic changed their designations from T (Trunk)
and L (Link) to N (National) and R (Regional),
as well as their numbers. Almost all prehistoric monuments are
now marked on the Southern Irish maps.
The Field Guide represented over
10 years of travelling all over Ireland (often with inadequate
maps), back and forth to get decent pictures with second-hand
cameras and to visit sites whose locations and descriptions were
buried in old archæological journals. So, when the poetic-philosophical
Dissident Editions website was set up, expansion to use all this
material was inevitable.
The first archæological/art-historical
pages were, however, not from the Field Guide, but from researches
into Irish sweathouses and the curious and grotesque 'exhibitionist'
figures known as Sheela-na-gigs. Investigations into the
origins and history of the latter were published by Batsford (later
Routledge) in London, under the unfortunate title of IMAGES
OF LUST, which has never been out of print since its
publication in 1985.
Further researches into exhibitionist
figures after publication produced the material now presented
on the SATAN
IN THE GROIN
website. The results of investigations into the puzzle of
Irish sweathouses are published herein
on this website.
Soon it was realised that the
library of colour-transparencies made during research for the
Field Guide could form the nucleus of a new on-line Field Guide,
updated with new map-references and information - and new photographs
where necessary.
Most Irish photo-archæological sites concentrate on the passage-tombs
of counties Meath and Sligo, and give no idea of the variety of
Irish field monuments all over the island, nor of their sculptural
beauty and the beauty of their locations.
At least half the pleasure of
discovering Ireland's megaliths is in leaving the banalised tourist
routes for a quieter, more hidden Ireland away from the coasts
and the famous passage-tombs & monastic cites. Even around
brash Dublin - and in the centre of Belfast - fine megaliths are
to be found. Indeed, a weekend might not be long enough in which
to see the megaliths just in the southern half of county Dublin.
The
website also includes an introduction to some of the thousands
of megaliths to be found in France to the east, north and
south of well-trodden Brittany. These French pages are the by-product
of travel for field-research into the origins of the Irish Sheela-na-gigs
on Romanesque churches, pursued in the late nineteen-seventies
and early eighties. They will expand with continuing visits to
La France Profonde, so much less advertised and so much
more rewarding than Ireland.
This website owes much to early
encouragement and advice from Andy Burnham (http://www.megalithic.co.uk//)
and from Bob Trubshaw (http://www.hoap.co.uk).
I am deeply indebted to Tom FourWinds
(http://www.megalithomania.com)
for many photos, much enthusiastic support, and good times visiting
new sites and revisiting sites I last saw 25 years ago or more.
Ken Williams (http//:www.shadowsandstone.com)
has also been generously supportive.
71 Ballyculter Road
Loughkeelan
Downpatrick
Northern Ireland
BT30 7BD
FEEDBACK
Anthony Weir is co-author of Images of Lust:
sexual carvings in medieval churches (1986, 1994, 1999).
He has also published articles in Archæology Ireland,
The County Louth Archæological Journal, Irish Midland Studies,
Mercian Mysteries, On the Edge, and The Ley Hunter.
He was a contributor to the second edition of The Shell Guide
to Ireland.
Before publishing his Field Guide he published poetry and
translations with Blackstaff Press, Belfast, and also wrote occasionally
for Fortnight political magazine, and the Newsletter of
Survival International.
In 1994 he founded Dissident
Editions
which is now an entirely electronic publisher.
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