Community Archaeology in Athy, Co. Kildare

Project: Athy Heritage Centre-Museum, Athy, Co. Kildare.

Year: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

Client: Athy Heritage Centre-Museum, funded by the Irish Walled Towns NetworkThe Heritage Council.

Aim: We’ve been carrying out a variety of projects in Athy since 2013. We’ve surveyed the Town Walls and Black Castle Tower using Ground Penetrating Radar and Electrical Resistivity Imaging and used Magnetometry and Electromagnetic Induction surveys at Woodstock Castle.

Community Engagement: We’ve given a number of lectures on our work in Athy at the Athy Heritage Centre Museum, we’ve been visited by local schools and filmed for a short video that documented the surveys for the benefit of the local national school.

Outcomes: The 2013-2016 geophysical surveys have been used to aid the management of the Athy Town Walls and castles in a rapidly developing urban area. For more information on our work at Athy, see our collection of Blogs from Athy.

Heritage Week 2014 – Part 1 – Carry out your own Geophysical Survey!

Mayfield Lake, Wetlands and its Archaeological Heritage.

Earthsound director Dr James Bonsall gave a talk and guided walk on the archaeological heritage of Mayfield Lake and Clare Lake, Claremorris, as part of Heritage Week, in the Mayfield Community Building, in Claremorris on the 28th August.

The local audience joined in and told great stories of old place names and memories of fishing in Mayfield Lake. After the talk, James led the audience out to McMahon Park to let them carry out their own archaeological survey.

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© 2014 Earthsound Geophysics Ltd.

Heritage Week 2014 – Part 2 – Meeting the Minister at Archaeofest

Earthsound’s Dr. James Bonsall attended the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland Archaeofest event in Merrion Square, Dublin for the official launch of Heritage Week.

James encouraged visitors to carry out a geophysical survey in the park whilst explaining how instruments are used to detect buried archaeological features.

Among those that collected data were Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys TD, who was very interested in the use of geophysical data on Irish infrastructure projects.

© 2014 Earthsound Geophysics Ltd.