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What was going on in the Iron Age in Munster?

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  • 18-06-2015 11:48am
    #1
    markesmith
    Registered Users Posts: 1,752 ✭✭✭


    Reading up a bit on the Iron Age in Ireland, it seems that Munster was either a cultural backwater or was not well-populated.

    Distribution of beehive querns and other La Tene material seems confined to the northern two-thirds of the island.

    Ptolemy's Geography shows tribes in the south, and we see the emergence of Ogham primarily in south Munster in the early Christian Age. However, this is a few hundred years after the entrance of La Tene into Ireland.

    What's the current thinking on this? Why was there such a cultural divide on the island? Or was it a case that very few people were living in the south?


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    #2
    Mountainsandh
    Registered Users Posts: 6,700 ✭✭✭Mountainsandh


    Do you know, I live in West Waterford, and very close to Tipp, and often think of that. I'm no historian or archaeologist, I just enjoy learning. There is a "gap" of sorts, for tombs for example, in South Tipp.

    Then I look around me, at Tipp and Waterford, see how intensely farmed the land is, and I always come to the same conclusion that the people here must have had a different relationship to the land than other communities, and that maybe a greater portion of heritage was sacrificed to farming.

    That's my completely uneducated interpretation, but I'll follow your thread with interest.


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    #3
    Ipso
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    The La Tene artifacts in Ireland are thought by some to have come from Britain.
    In the Ulster area coming from Scotland via the group known as the Cruithin, there is a chance that this same group gave rise to the Connachta dynasty (it seems to have been the result of Northern English/Scottish migration in the post Roman period at least).
    This would account for Connacht and Ulster.
    The Laighin group, after which Leinster is named, are thought to be descended from the British group lnown as the Brigantes.
    I think Laois may be named after a Cruithin group known as the Loighis.

    It may be a case that these groups didn't try to make it that far or couldn't.

    It's definitely an interesting phenomenon. For most of the Iron Age Ireland was supposed to have gone through a bit of a dark age, and with Roman expansion and Germanic groups pushing through Europe there seems to have been some elite movement at least into Ireland.
    JP Mallory's book Origins of the Irish is a good source for archaeological information.

    Below is an older thread that touches on the topic.
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057072441&page=2


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