Getting down to earth with Clare history

Archaeologist, Graham Hull, responsible for shedding light on much of the hidden history of the county, offers John Rainsford an insight into his work

By John Rainsford

THE rain is heavy over East Clare but for Graham Hull, it is just another day at the office. The muck, the sweat and the tears are all part of an archaeologist’s lot in life but he would not have it another way.
Viewers of the Channel 4 archaeological series Time Team, will know the sort of person whose life revolves around stones and bones. Indeed, the presenter of the ‘reality archaeology’ show, Tony Robinson, provides a good comparison. His constant search for historical evidence to support one theory after another has become a byword for historical obsession.
Graham Hull explains his own passion for the ‘dig’. “I am a professional archaeologist and director of TVAS (Ireland) Ltd, an archaeological consultancy based in County Clare. My research interests include the medieval period in the Gaelic controlled areas of Ireland and I am directing a research excavation at Caherconnell Cashel on the Burren at the Caherconnell Archaeological Field School.
“Most of my work is development led and my company has undertaken archaeological work on motorway schemes such as the M18 Ennis Bypass, the Limerick Southern Ring Road and the M7 Nenagh to Limerick. My editorship of The Other Clare is a voluntary post. I have enjoyed reading the journal since I came to Ireland from England in 2000 – to work in the Celtic Tiger economy – and fell in love with County Clare. Part of my day job is writing and editing archaeological reports so I felt qualified to take on the role of editor of The Other Clare in 2009.”
This year’s edition of the historical journal is once again brim full of exciting archaeology. With many of the contributors being historical sleuths rather than professional academics, the content is all the more engaging.
Ancient graffiti in Corcomroe Abbey, an historical cashel at Caherconnell, massacres in Sixmilebridge and bloody accounts from Ennis Friary are only some of the marvellous tales put to paper. There are also historical insights into famous families like the Corbetts of Bunratty, Fitzgeralds of Carrigoran, Uí Mhaoir of Drumcliff and Catherine McMahon of East Clare.
For those with a penchant for ancient reliquaries, a newly discovered early Christian cross is examined at Teampallnadeirka along with castles and tower houses aplenty in South East Clare. Ordnance Survey Sappers marks, findings from the Gort to Crusheen road scheme and a tale of an old Clare Hill complete a feast for the senses.
Strangely, for such a seasoned campaigner, he chose archaeology as a career relatively late in life.
“My interest in archaeology began as a child, digging out a Victorian bottle dump on my aunt and uncle’s farm in East London,” says Graham. “My father was not an archaeologist but he took me to museums as a little boy and I think that was a great influence on my career choice. It was not until I was in my thirties that I formalised my interests by studying archaeology at Reading University in England and becoming a full-time archaeologist.
“My favourite site was probably the old Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.  Beneath paving slabs there, I found the skeletons of maybe 15 people. Some of the tops of the skulls had been sawn open and there were copper wires linking bones. The bones were from an 18th century anatomical exhibition that had been unceremoniously dumped during renovations at the museum in the 19th century.
“Documentary research showed that most of these people would have been hanged at the gallows and as part of the punishment, their bodies were given to the surgeons. I think that coming face to face with the past in such a dramatic and poignant way reminds me that archaeology is there to tell the stories of the people that came before us.”
The job is not all glamour, however. Often working outside, the weather can be an important factor. Although a warm sunny day is great for a while, soon the site becomes dusty and archaeological features are difficult to see as everything dries out. Alternatively, too much rain creates mud and that makes moving about very difficult. Heavy rain also makes it very trying to record any pits, postholes or ditches found.
As an archaeological project manager, Graham spent many anxious days looking at the Met Éireann website last November for forecasts about the snow.  With 130 people working on a motorway scheme in Enniscorthy, County Wexford the snow came and stayed until January. He had to suspend the works; that was his worst weather experience, he says. Bureaucracy, however, has sometimes proved even more frustrating.
“My first job, in Ireland, was on the Newmarket-on-Fergus bypass. Then, there was often conflict between the desires of archaeologists to record the heritage, much needed infrastructural improvement and financially efficient management of public-funded projects. All of the archaeological sites on that road scheme were dug at great cost to the taxpayer and yet have not been properly reported or the results made available to the public. As an archaeologist and a taxpayer, this is utterly infuriating. The sites might as well not have been dug and the millions spent on something better.
“It was partly the fiasco on the Newmarket-on-Fergus bypass that led to a national agreement between the State’s archaeological service and the National Roads Authority. Nowadays, hopefully, taxpayer’s money is better spent as archaeologists go and dig sites long before the construction starts, with reporting and publishing happening routinely. Indeed, the archaeological results of the Ennis Bypass are nearly ready to be published in book form. There is also an exhibition of some of the finds made by another archaeological company on the Gort to Crusheen road scheme at the Clare Museum in Ennis.”
Unlike Time Team with its ‘only three days to dig’ motif used as a dramatic device to create a sense of tension in the audience, real-life archaeology is scheduled into the development process. Adequate resources are now factored in, from planning to construction.
This does not preclude the advent of genuine drama though. “Finding an intact prehistoric pot from 4,000 years ago in a field near Vinegar Hill, County Wexford, or the skeleton of a man who was buried next to Cratloemoyle Castle, County Clare some 400 years ago, are exciting moments for myself and my colleagues. It is a thrill to think that you are the first person to see and hold, say, a glass bead from Claureen, Ennis since it was put in the ground at the time of Christ.”
The entire discovery does not always happen on site, however. Months after the shovels and wheelbarrows have been put away, he can get an email from a scientist at Queen’s University Belfast with radiocarbon dates as an attachment. With one click the assumed date of thousands of years BC is shown to be wrong and his task of finding an archaeological narrative that fits the facts continues.
“I do not like to see archaeological sites needlessly destroyed by development but I do recognise that the landscape in which we live has continuously changed and evolved. Archaeologists have a responsibility to preserve and promote knowledge about our past, yet we also realise that our present society needs houses, roads, windfarms, water schemes and all the other things that our ancestors would probably have wished to have.”
The Other Clare is the journal of the Shannon Archaeological and Historical Society and was first published in 1977. The journal publishes historical, archaeological and cultural material relating to County Clare and is now recognised nationally and internationally.
“The recession has not influenced the journal negatively,” says Graham. “There is always something new to say about the past and indeed with less work pressure, many people have more time to both read and write about our heritage.”
The journal is sponsored by Clare institutions, businesses and individuals, published in A4 format and is beautifully illustrated. Hilary Gilmore’s line drawings of County Clare monuments have been a feature of the front cover for many years and make the journal instantly recognisable.
The 35th volume of The Other Clare (2011) will be officially launched at the Oakwood Arms Hotel in Shannon this Thursday at 8pm.