Aerial Archaeology in Ireland - The Heritage Council

1983). The issue is thus not whether the results of aerial archaeology are used in such textbooks and overviews, but how the
role of aerial archaeology is conveyed in such overviews. A preference for using maps and diagrams rather than aerial imagery
for this type of work makes sense when synthesising the combined results of aerial survey and other data. This is especially true
when trying to highlight features of form and topographical and spatial relationships which, on any single photograph, may be
unclear or obscured by later landscape features. But the need to synthesise still needs to be balanced with the power of good
aerial imagery to convey what such places are like on the ground, not just in the minds of archaeologists.
Air photographs figure much more in publications aimed at the general reader and in publications covering particular sites.
Since the 1980s, a programme of aerial photography of key sites and areas has formed a standard part of photographic work
undertaken by the NMS (principally Con Brogan). This has provided very high-quality illustrative material for a wide variety
of the NMS’s own publications, including the County Inventories and guidebooks (e.g. Manning 1994), as well as external
publications, such as Marshall and Rourke’s (2000) study of High Island, or the Discovery Programme’s research at Tara (Newman
1997). In addition, the photographic archive provides a collection of high-quality images of significant localities available for
general publicity, exhibitions and reproduction on a commercial basis.
The value of aerial archaeology for reconnaissance, interpretation and illustration has been very usefully conveyed both to
archaeologists and a wider audience through numerous editions of Archaeology Ireland (see Bibliography for several examples),
and in several of the card guides to key sites and monuments issued as regular supplements to the magazine. Condit (1997) has
provided a very useful introduction to the subject for the general reader (available in the National Museum of Ireland shop in
Dublin as well as other bookshops).
Air photography of sites and monuments is also used commonly in more general books on the landscape and history of Ireland.
For example, out of the 188 photographs and diagrams included in the second edition of Mitchell and Ryan’s Reading the
Irish Landscape (1990), 46 are aerial photographs from 13 different sources (predominantly CUCAP and NMS). This includes 16
of the 52 colour plates. Significant use is made of archaeological and other aerial photography in Aalen, Whelan and Stout’s
Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape (1997). As a technique, it is obviously the basis for two publications entitled Ireland from
the Air (Pochin Mould 1972; Somerville-Large and Hawkes 1997) and Northern Ireland from the Air (Common 1964). Dr Pochin
Mould’s Discovering Cork (1991) is an example of a similar approach at a county level, while Billy Colfer’s (2007) use of aerial
photography in his study of the Hook Peninsula illustrates the value of aerial photography in local studies.
Overall, therefore, aerial archaeology figures quite well in many publications for different audiences. However, it is probably fair
to say that in many general works, it is used mainly for its purely illustrative value, rather than reflecting its application as a core
tool for research and analysis. The relative paucity of its use in textbooks may reflect the continued predominance of object- and
site-based approaches to academic research, even for geographical and landscape-based studies — though this is not to deny
important exceptions as outlined above.
4.7 Public Exhibitions and Outreach
Air photography is commonly used in archaeological exhibitions, displays at sites open to the public, and in guidebooks (Figure
55). It is clearly seen as a particularly powerful way of conveying a strong visual perception of what places are like from a
perspective that is different than the normal ground-level view of everyday life. It appears that there have been relatively few
cases where aerial archaeology has been the principal means of explaining archaeology to the public; most of those spoken
to considered that it could be used much more as a means of informing the public about the historic environment and its
conservation and management. Two instructive cases were cited as examples of what can be done.
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