Aerial Archaeology in Ireland - The Heritage Council

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The aims and objectives of these aerial survey campaigns were described in Norman and St Joseph’s book, The Early Development
of Irish Society: the Evidence of Aerial Photography (1969). The work was partly initiated by archaeologists from the National
Museum of Ireland and other institutions who sought coverage of particular places and themes. While these requests provided
an initial framework, St Joseph was clear that he would apply the well-developed approach that he had used elsewhere and
which had achieved a much broader basis for research. As a result, he revealed much previously unrecognised potential for aerial
archaeology — and indeed a strong theme of Norman and St Joseph’s book was demonstrating that aerial archaeology had a
worthwhile part to play in research for all periods and all parts of Ireland. (Figures 10-13, 22, 26, 37, 43, 44 illustrate something
of the range of St Joseph’s interests in archaeology, landscape and geology.)
Figure 12: Oblique photograph showing traces of rundale farming at
Fawnglass, Clare Island, Mayo (CUCAP 18 July 1967)
Figure 13: Excavations in progress at the later prehistoric hillfort of Dún
Ailinne, Knockaulin townland, Co. Kildare, in 1969 (CUCAP 9 July 1969)
In the last few years, the Heritage Council has grant-aided the Cambridge University Unit for Landscape Modelling in conducting
a lidar survey of the Loughcrew area (Shell and Roughley 2004; Figure 30).
The Unit for Landscape Modelling has recently established a powerful online digital map-based catalogue to their collections
covering Great Britain, but this does not yet extend to Ireland.
Prints of the vast majority of photographs of archaeological value from St Joseph’s work are held by NMS, where they are stored
in the relevant site-by-site files as part of the national SMR archive. Sets are also held by the National Museum of Ireland,
where they are held as a specific collection with relevant indexes provided by CUCAP. The museum collection is principally from
the 1963-1973 campaigns, and consists of 121 albums, each containing around 100 oblique/panorama photos and three/four
verticals (i.e. a total of c. 12,600 images). The card indexes facilitate access by county/townland, subject, and cropmarks (by
county). Copies of prints have to be ordered directly from the Cambridge University Unit for Landscape Modelling.
University College Cork Archaeological Survey Unit
In 1982, the Archaeological Survey Unit was established under the auspices of the Department of Archaeology at the University
of Cork to undertake survey work in south-west Ireland on behalf of the Office of Public Works (now the National Monuments
Section of DoEHLG). It is still funded by the NMS and forms part of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland. It is primarily (but
not exclusively) concerned with recording archaeological sites in counties Cork and Kerry, and has published the four-volume
County Inventory for Cork. The unit is currently preparing the inventories for South County Kerry and South County Sligo.