Three detailed case studies, involving digital recording of carved stone monuments, will be undertaken as part of the project.

Armagh Idols

(Lead: Dr Patrick Gleeson, QUB)
Due to its internationally important collection of Late Iron Age carved stones, along with high crosses and other monuments, Armagh provides a unique opportunity to examine how stone carving developed through the first millennium AD within a landscape of major religious and political significance spanning the transition to Christianity. Digital recording of these monuments will facilitate a reassessment of their form and chronology, and of the role the Iron Age examples played as foci for ritual and belief within the wider Armagh/Navan Fort landscape.

Clonmacnoise’s Hinterland

(Lead: Dr Tomás Ó Carragáin, UCC)
Clonmacnoise has one of the largest (c. 700) and most important collections of carved stone in northwest Europe, and the presence of Clonmacnoise-style carving at lesser sites in its hinterland represents an unmatched opportunity to investigate what such monuments may reveal about monastic networks and the mobility and identity of carvers. For the first time, DAEICS will enable comprehensive spatial analysis of designs strongly associated with Clonmacnoise, including some instances outside its immediate hinterland. Digital recording and analysis of selected monuments, combined with historical and geological research, will allow the implications of these patterns to be explored.

Iveragh Identities

(Lead: John Sheehan, UCC)
In the final study area, Iveragh, Co. Kerry, carved stones monuments sit within a remarkably rich and well-preserved archaeological landscape. Though ostensibly remote and marginal, the these monuments reveal a different, cosmopolitan picture, expressing a diversity of connections with the wider world, including the Mediterranean (e.g. Caherlehillan), Merovingian France (e.g. Ardmoneel), and Western Britain (ogham). One of the vectors for social change in this landscape was the establishment of a Hiberno-Scandinavian community on Beginish, who signalled their identity by carving one of the only surviving runestones in Ireland. The first detailed study of this important monument by a leading runologist (Prof. Kristel Zilmer, University of Oslo) will facilitate a wider reassessment of this community and its connections, both local and far-flung.