Week 5 Achill Island: 20-26 June 2016
I'm most definitely avoiding finishing my paper on holy wells right now by writing this blog post, but this week's events were pretty much straight forward so I won't be avoiding work for too much longer.
We have officially finished drawing and surveying our trench on Slievemore as of Tuesday and just have to do topography and soil stratigraphy this upcoming week, then we are going to close up the site by back filling! A question a lot of the tourists ask us when they walk up is why we back fill and close up sites that we spent so much time digging and recording, so I am going to assume whoever is reading this has the same question. I'm not sure if you could tell from the pictures I have posted but we were working right along with sheep who pay no mind to where they are stepping. This is fine of course but over time they alter the landscape. Tourists are similar to the sheep, and just see a big rock that they want to stand on to get a better picture of the ocean and yes they also alter the landscape. We back fill after cleaning and recording the site to preserve and protect these ancient monuments from natural erosion, human interaction, and because the cost of upkeep is so high. It will be sad to see all the work we put in to removing the dirt just disappear but it will just have to be okay.
Here is the director's video blog of what we have been doing
The Wednesday field trip this week was my absolute favorite. We went to Achill Beg, literally 'little Achill', a deserted island just off the coast. To get there we had to take a currach (traditional Irish boat) over. The dock was very high up and we had to climb down a terrifying metal rung ladder into the rickety boat with only the help of a little old man. It took 3 trips to get the entire group over.
The island has a bit of life on it but was completely abandoned in the 1960s when it was deemed too small to be given proper electricity. Now there are just a few sheep grazing and the occasional summer tenant.
We started off the tour by looking at shell middens, strips of land that are constructed out of sea life debris previously used by inhabitants. These are great for dating surges of life throughout areas.
Continuing on we stopped by the school masters house and the school house itself. These are incredibly important to a culture because with small communities such as on these small island the school master is the one who acts as the police, a judge, and a mediator due to being one of the few with an extended education. The school house was super intriguing because it was co-ed in the actual classroom but the play yard was separated by a built up wall that connected to the separate toilets. Nobody really understands this anomaly of why boys and girls were allowed to learn together but not play together.
Leaving from the school house we continued our journey up the side of the island and I got to see a holy well. These are what I am writing my paper on and will talk about later. Short and sweet explanation is that they are small areas of fresh water that have transitioned historically from pagan rituals to a Christianized place of worship and ritual still used today. There are approximately 3,000 in Ireland alone.
We finished up by seeing a promontory fort and a monastic site, apparently the island was a very popular spot for monks to seclude themselves and pray and pray and pray and pray...
Completing the tour was a stop at one of the famous Grace O'Malley's tower houses in Kildavnet and a beautiful graveyard and church in the same area. This graveyard was home to the victims of two big disasters that wiped out a massive amount of the population for such a small island. The first disaster was of the death of about 30 servants who were locked in a barn to keep from escaping that caught on fire. The second disaster happened less than two years later and killed almost twenty five children who sunk on a bought going to find work. Losing this much of the young population took a toll on keeping the island's population up, letters were sent to the main land actually asking for women and men to be sent over to reproduce and grow the island back to its original size.
It was just a beautiful little island and if anyone ever is in the area I highly recommend taking a quick 2 hour detour.
Now comes the drama of the week. Somehow we went five and a half entire weeks without any issues so it was no surprise that there had to be a big blow up. One of the new two weekers who came to join us was a frat boy from Virginia. He kept to himself and didn't really talk about anything to anyone. He spent most of his time looking high as a kite, hungover, at the pub, or a mixture of the three. Well it came to light that his parents sent him here to try and straighten him and his Xanax addiction out with some good ol' manual labor, but he couldn't handle it after 4 days and had decided to leave. As we are learning this while sitting at the pub with him he decided to tell us that he had not been talking to us because he was a "bigot and could not talk to us stupid liberals and all of the homos". (Yes a self proclaimed bigot!!! I didn't know they existed and don't know how to handle it) Anyway he continued to tell us that he "had to keep quiet because it was a way of restraining himself from busting our heads through walls"...again his words. We decided to leave at this point because we were all angry and couldn't believe someone could be so self-admittedly nuts. It was St. John's day and the locals were having a giant bonfire in celebration and we escaped off to that.
It has been a much happier place here without him. (Note: I have no problem shit talking this person due to the fact that he was a totally horrible person)
Thursday and Friday we had lab days and learned how to draw artifacts from a specialist name Rena McGuire and how to make snazzy presentations and update historical maps on a free program called ArcGIS. The drawing was really interesting to me and Rena told me I had a knack for it. She said that a girl from last year was making side money from archaeologists because it is a sought after skill in the community. I will put some pictures of my work below.
Today (Saturday) has been a really fun day. We all got up around 10:30 and went out to The Beehive again. Ariel and I split a Chicken, bacon, brie, and chutney sandwich and a Chicken Tiki sandwich. I also got a cappuccino and a delicious piece of berry cobbler. The store is extremely cute and artsy so we walked around and I ended up buying a cute Irish made wool beanie. We continued our adventure by walking down to the lifestyle store a few doors down and the vest I have been thinking about buying for three weeks was still there and also marked down, so I went ahead and bought it. On our way back to the house we saw a cute little photography gallery and stopped in to check out everything. It was a cute little shed behind a B&B and ran and operated by the photographer himself. I ended up getting to small prints for 2 euros each.
The rest of this day has been a lazy one, consisting of laying in bed, watching movies, and procrastinating. I will work on my paper and finish up tomorrow so I can enjoy every last minute of my last week. Although I am excited to finally get to see my family again I can't believe these six weeks are almost up. It has absolutely flown by and I am not ready to leave yet.
We have officially finished drawing and surveying our trench on Slievemore as of Tuesday and just have to do topography and soil stratigraphy this upcoming week, then we are going to close up the site by back filling! A question a lot of the tourists ask us when they walk up is why we back fill and close up sites that we spent so much time digging and recording, so I am going to assume whoever is reading this has the same question. I'm not sure if you could tell from the pictures I have posted but we were working right along with sheep who pay no mind to where they are stepping. This is fine of course but over time they alter the landscape. Tourists are similar to the sheep, and just see a big rock that they want to stand on to get a better picture of the ocean and yes they also alter the landscape. We back fill after cleaning and recording the site to preserve and protect these ancient monuments from natural erosion, human interaction, and because the cost of upkeep is so high. It will be sad to see all the work we put in to removing the dirt just disappear but it will just have to be okay.
Here is the director's video blog of what we have been doing
The Wednesday field trip this week was my absolute favorite. We went to Achill Beg, literally 'little Achill', a deserted island just off the coast. To get there we had to take a currach (traditional Irish boat) over. The dock was very high up and we had to climb down a terrifying metal rung ladder into the rickety boat with only the help of a little old man. It took 3 trips to get the entire group over.
 |
| Getting into the currach |
The island has a bit of life on it but was completely abandoned in the 1960s when it was deemed too small to be given proper electricity. Now there are just a few sheep grazing and the occasional summer tenant.
We started off the tour by looking at shell middens, strips of land that are constructed out of sea life debris previously used by inhabitants. These are great for dating surges of life throughout areas.
 |
| Shell midden |
Continuing on we stopped by the school masters house and the school house itself. These are incredibly important to a culture because with small communities such as on these small island the school master is the one who acts as the police, a judge, and a mediator due to being one of the few with an extended education. The school house was super intriguing because it was co-ed in the actual classroom but the play yard was separated by a built up wall that connected to the separate toilets. Nobody really understands this anomaly of why boys and girls were allowed to learn together but not play together.
Leaving from the school house we continued our journey up the side of the island and I got to see a holy well. These are what I am writing my paper on and will talk about later. Short and sweet explanation is that they are small areas of fresh water that have transitioned historically from pagan rituals to a Christianized place of worship and ritual still used today. There are approximately 3,000 in Ireland alone.
We finished up by seeing a promontory fort and a monastic site, apparently the island was a very popular spot for monks to seclude themselves and pray and pray and pray and pray...
Completing the tour was a stop at one of the famous Grace O'Malley's tower houses in Kildavnet and a beautiful graveyard and church in the same area. This graveyard was home to the victims of two big disasters that wiped out a massive amount of the population for such a small island. The first disaster was of the death of about 30 servants who were locked in a barn to keep from escaping that caught on fire. The second disaster happened less than two years later and killed almost twenty five children who sunk on a bought going to find work. Losing this much of the young population took a toll on keeping the island's population up, letters were sent to the main land actually asking for women and men to be sent over to reproduce and grow the island back to its original size.
 |
| Grace O'Malley's castle tower house in Kildavnet |
It was just a beautiful little island and if anyone ever is in the area I highly recommend taking a quick 2 hour detour.
Now comes the drama of the week. Somehow we went five and a half entire weeks without any issues so it was no surprise that there had to be a big blow up. One of the new two weekers who came to join us was a frat boy from Virginia. He kept to himself and didn't really talk about anything to anyone. He spent most of his time looking high as a kite, hungover, at the pub, or a mixture of the three. Well it came to light that his parents sent him here to try and straighten him and his Xanax addiction out with some good ol' manual labor, but he couldn't handle it after 4 days and had decided to leave. As we are learning this while sitting at the pub with him he decided to tell us that he had not been talking to us because he was a "bigot and could not talk to us stupid liberals and all of the homos". (Yes a self proclaimed bigot!!! I didn't know they existed and don't know how to handle it) Anyway he continued to tell us that he "had to keep quiet because it was a way of restraining himself from busting our heads through walls"...again his words. We decided to leave at this point because we were all angry and couldn't believe someone could be so self-admittedly nuts. It was St. John's day and the locals were having a giant bonfire in celebration and we escaped off to that.
 |
| St. John's celebration bonfire |
It has been a much happier place here without him. (Note: I have no problem shit talking this person due to the fact that he was a totally horrible person)
Thursday and Friday we had lab days and learned how to draw artifacts from a specialist name Rena McGuire and how to make snazzy presentations and update historical maps on a free program called ArcGIS. The drawing was really interesting to me and Rena told me I had a knack for it. She said that a girl from last year was making side money from archaeologists because it is a sought after skill in the community. I will put some pictures of my work below.
Today (Saturday) has been a really fun day. We all got up around 10:30 and went out to The Beehive again. Ariel and I split a Chicken, bacon, brie, and chutney sandwich and a Chicken Tiki sandwich. I also got a cappuccino and a delicious piece of berry cobbler. The store is extremely cute and artsy so we walked around and I ended up buying a cute Irish made wool beanie. We continued our adventure by walking down to the lifestyle store a few doors down and the vest I have been thinking about buying for three weeks was still there and also marked down, so I went ahead and bought it. On our way back to the house we saw a cute little photography gallery and stopped in to check out everything. It was a cute little shed behind a B&B and ran and operated by the photographer himself. I ended up getting to small prints for 2 euros each.
The rest of this day has been a lazy one, consisting of laying in bed, watching movies, and procrastinating. I will work on my paper and finish up tomorrow so I can enjoy every last minute of my last week. Although I am excited to finally get to see my family again I can't believe these six weeks are almost up. It has absolutely flown by and I am not ready to leave yet.
Comments
Post a Comment