Aerial Archaeology in Ireland - The Heritage Council

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Figure 45: Drumlin landscape near Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim.
The field patterns clearly reflect and emphasise the
characteristic ‘basket of eggs’ topography of low rounded
hills and occasional lakes, helping to define the natural and
historic character of the landscape (CUCAP 15 July 1967)
In England and Scotland, where characterisation approaches have been developing for some years, there is increasing recognition
that information about the historic environment needs to be managed in more sophisticated ways — though this still has some
way to go (Herring 1998; Fairclough 2002, Darlington 2002; Dixon and Hingley 2002). In Ireland, Cooney et al. (2000, 2002)
have developed an approach based on a mixture of the Scottish and English methods. At the broad-brush level, their approach
characterises whole townlands, representing a network of long-established historic territories as the basic framework for
analysis. The much finer-grained approach of characterising individual land parcels is also being developed and partly underlies
the broad picture (Cooney pers. comm.).
With all these approaches, it can be argued that there is still a missing level of linking site-based concepts to relict features
and large-scale geographical approaches to present landscape character (Johnson 1999). The challenge lies in capturing the
complexity of historic features and landscape or townscape character that is so richly reflected in aerial imagery. This is especially
challenging where the complexity of some relict landscape features can be directly related to present-day landscape features
and land use. This is extremely evident in much Irish aerial photography (e.g. Barrett 1997a, 1997b, 1997/8, 1999; Shell and
Roughley 2004). Such complexity cannot be translated readily into simple map form, nor yet into broader characteristics at a
townland scale. And yet it is fundamental to understanding the evolution of the landscape and its management. It is through
these means that a better understanding can be gained of how modern landscape change, driven by agricultural improvement
and other development, relates to longer term patterns of change, and development within different historical and social
contexts, stretching far back in historical and archaeological time.
Aerial photography has an especially powerful role to play in revealing patterns of landscape change — and hence threats and
pressures on the archaeological resource at a landscape scale. Linking aerial archaeology into the concept of the whole farm as
an archaeological entity could be a rich seam of research, and a useful tool for landscape characterisation and management.