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August 10, 2006Achill Island Field Report 14: Odds and Ends: Curragh pens, anchor stock recording, and snorkeling Dooagh pier, 12-15 July 2006The forecast is calling for heavy seas for this week, precluding any diving, so over the next few days we are working on several alternative tasks. One ongoing objective is to continue recording the curragh pens at Dooagh pier. We would like to finish an overall plan depicting all 20 pens, the coastline, and pier itself. August 04, 2006Achill Island Field Report 16: Two Shipwrecks Under Two Lighthouses, 17-18 July 2006Our final team member has arrived. Dr. Sam Turner is the Director of Archaeology for LAMP (Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program) and also the President of IMH (Institute for Maritime History), two of the institutions sponsoring this research project. He flew in from Florida last night to work with us for our final two weeks on Achill. July 25, 2006Achill Island Field Report 15: First dive on the Jenny shipwreck, 16 July 2006The Norwegian sailing bark Jenny was lost at Achill Beg Island on route to Hamburg, Germany from Morant Bay, Jamaica, on 13 January 1894. She had a cargo of logwood and a crew of ten men, all of whom survived the wrecking. Continue reading "Achill Island Field Report 15: First dive on the Jenny shipwreck, 16 July 2006" » Achill Island Field Report 13: Arrival of Norine and Mapping the Westport Quay Wreck, 9-11 July 2006Another crewmember has arrived on the 9th of July. Norine Carroll is a volunteer who I have worked with on a number of shipwreck projects since 1997. She currently works in the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., and has agreed to come for two weeks to work with us. Norine is an archaeological conservator, which means her specialty is the treatment and stabilization of artifacts, and she is also an accomplished diver and archaeologist as well. Norine has worked on a wide variety of shipwrecks in Turkey, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Texas, and elsewhere. Norine was also one of the first participants in the original St. Augustine Shipwreck Survey, a project in Florida that led to the formation of LAMP, one of the research institutes sponsoring the Achill Island Maritime Archaeology Project. Achill Island Field Report 12: Mapping Curragh Pens at Dooagh Pier, 7-9 July 2006As in other colonial settings, indigenous and vernacular watercraft, notably the skin-clad curragh and wooden-planked yawl, played a central role in long-standing maritime lifeways and practices on Achill. Curraghs are the famed skin or canvas boats used for centuries along the western seaboard of Ireland. Curragh designs vary from island to island and coast to coast. In 1936 an Achill curragh from the village of Keel was recorded by the British maritime historian James Hornell. July 13, 2006Achill Island Field Report 11: Recording the Anchor of the Sceptre, 3-4 July 2006Last year we discovered that an anchor had been raised from the seafloor around Saddle Head by some Achill fishermen in the late 1960s. We successfully tracked it down and got a look at it, but didn’t have time to fully record it. This is one of our objectives this year. Achill Island Field Report 10: Recording the Steering Assembly on the Successful Trawler Wreck, 2-3 July 2006Last year we spend a significant amount of time recording the wreckage of the Successful, a late 19th/early 20th century fishing trawler (see Field Report 4). It is a very complex shipwreck, and we were unable to fully document it in one field season. The fact that we can only work on the wreck at low tide makes this task even more challenging. This year, we have re-visited the wreck and cleared it of a year’s growth of kelp and seaweed, in order to continue its documentation. Achill Island Field Report 9: Arrival of Kevin and Lecture in Westport, 28-29 June 2006On the 28th I’m driving to Westport to pick up Kevin Cullen, an archaeology graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is Irish-born, but emigrated to America when he was young, and it has been eight years since he’s been back to Ireland. He is also a diver, and will be participating in the project through the end of July. Achill Island Field Report 8: Archaeological Tour of Clare Island, 25 June 2006A few days ago, my landlady Sheila McNamara brought to my attention an announcement in the Mayo News about a free archaeological tour of Clare Island being hosted by the Clew Bay Archaeological Trail (www.clewbaytrail.com). This trail, which encompasses 21 archaeological sites including megalithic tombs, Bronze Age cooking sites and promontory forts, medieval churches, and a 16th century tower house, was set up to introduce visitors to the rich archaeological heritage of the southern portion of Clew Bay. It stretches 35 km from Westport through Murrisk (west of Westport on the southern shore of Clew Bay), further west to Louisburgh, and then (via ferry) to Clare Island. Continue reading "Achill Island Field Report 8: Archaeological Tour of Clare Island, 25 June 2006" » Achill Island Field Report 7: St. John’s Eve: Bonfire Night, 23 June 2006After another low tide recording the Successful wreck at Achill Sound, I am looking forward to participating in a traditional Irish event, St. John’s Eve, also known as Bonfire Night. School kids and adults alike can’t hide their excitement over the upcoming conflagration. At various locations throughout Achill, and over the entire country, massive piles of refuse are collected and, around midnight, will be set alight in a series of huge bonfires. Continue reading "Achill Island Field Report 7: St. John’s Eve: Bonfire Night, 23 June 2006" » July 04, 2006Achill Island Field Report 6: 19th century Ice House on Corraun, 21 June 2006Today I have joined the Achill Archaeological Field School students for their weekly field trip, lead by Field Director Simon O Faolain and Managing Director and Field School founder Theresa McDonald. The students will be traveling to Corraun to see a number of historical and archaeological sites. Theresa has promised to show me a stone structure used as an ice house for Achill’s 19th century commercial fishing industry. This commercial marine activity was introduced to Achill by a Scotsman named Alexander Hector, who came to the island in 1855 to start a salmon-fishing venture. Continue reading "Achill Island Field Report 6: 19th century Ice House on Corraun, 21 June 2006" » Achill Island Field Report 5: Hike to the Napoleonic Tower, 19 June 2006We’ve had a few days of bad weather, and so haven’t gotten much work done. It has made for some interesting sights, though. Here the mist creeps over the crest of the mountain and threatens to engulf a holiday home below. Continue reading "Achill Island Field Report 5: Hike to the Napoleonic Tower, 19 June 2006" » Achill Island Field Report 4: Return to the Wreck of the Successful, 14 June 2006Today’s plan is to visit the wreck of an old fishing trawler named the Successful. This vessel may have been originally built as early as the late nineteenth century, though it certainly operated through the first decades of the twentieth century. Around 1950 it was a derelict vessel in Westport, and it was bought by the Sweeny family of Achill Sound for only five pounds. June 27, 2006Achill Island Field Report 3: On to Achill, 09-12 June 06Achill, wind-swept and bare, heavily peat-covered, with great gaunt brown mountains rising here and there, and a wild coast hammered by the Atlantic on all sides but the east, has a strange charm which everyone feels, but no one can fully explain. — Robert Lloyd Praeger, geologist Continue reading "Achill Island Field Report 3: On to Achill, 09-12 June 06" » June 26, 2006Achill Island Field Report: Discovery of the Westport Quay WreckThe following evening we set out to the quay at low tide to look for the wreck that local historian John Mulloy told us was abandoned and exposed on the foreshore. My host Mr. Shanley has also seen this wreck, though like many people living on a historic waterfront he hasn’t given much thought to it until an archaeologist comes around asking questions about it. The weather has been sunny and beautiful, something that is not necessarily the norm in Ireland. At the end of the pier on Roman Island we see the mist shrouding Croghpatrick, a mountain with religious significance which has long drawn pilgrims to the area. Continue reading "Achill Island Field Report: Discovery of the Westport Quay Wreck" » Achill Island Field Report: Arrival in Westport and Clew BayThis is the first of a series of regular updates I am writing so that those interested in the Achill Island Maritime Archaeology Project can follow our activities and share in our discoveries as we make them. My name is Chuck Meide, I am the project director, a graduate student at the College of William and Mary, and the Director of LAMP (the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program, based out of the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum). I am also an archaeologist with the Institute of Maritime History, the institute which, along with those mentioned above and the Achill Folklife Centre, is sponsoring this project. Welcome to the first update for the project! Continue reading "Achill Island Field Report: Arrival in Westport and Clew Bay" » March 09, 2006IMH receives grant from the Irish Heritage CouncilThe Institute of Maritime History has received a 5,000 euro grant from the Irish Heritage Council for its upcoming field season on Achill Island, Ireland. The Achill Island Maritime Archaeology Project, a joint effort with the College of William and Mary and the Achill Folklife Centre, has been focused on documenting the island's rich maritime history since 2004. The title of the grant is "The Archaeological Investigation of Economic Relations on the Nineteenth Century Maritime Cultural Landscape of Achill Island, Co. Mayo." The upcoming 2006 season will stage field investigations of a variety of maritime archaeological sites both above and below the water, including the ruins of commercial fishing and Coastguard stations, and the wrecks of the Neptune (English bark, 1860), the Jenny (Norwegian bark, 1894), and the Charles Stewart Parnell (Irish ketch, 1928). |
