JULY-AUGUST 2008
www.celtic-connection.com
Page 25
Digging up the Past at Stone Circle
THE RING OF BRODGAR in Orkney is the third-largest stone circle in the British Isles.
KIRKWALL, Orkney - Work is scheduled to start early July to unearth the secrets of one of Europe's most important prehistoric sites.
The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, the third-largest stone circle in the British Isles and thought to date back to 3000-2000BC, is regarded by archaeologists as an outstanding example of Neolithic settlement and has become a popular tourist attraction in the islands.
It is believed it was part of a massive
ritual complex but little is known about the monument, including its exact age or purpose.
It is hoped part of the mystery will be explained during a month-long program of investigations by a 15-strong team of archaeologists and scientists from Orkney College, Stirling and Manchester universities and the Scottish Universities Environment Reactor Centre.
The project will involve the re-excavation and extension of trenches dug in 1973. Geophysical surveys will be undertaken to investigate the location of standing stones and other features within the henge monument.
Dr. Jane Downes, of Orkney College's archaeology department, one of the project directors, said, "Because so little is known about the Ring of Brodgar, a series of assumptions have taken the place of archaeological data. The interpretation of what is arguably the most spectacular stone circle in Scotland is therefore incomplete and unclear.
"The advanced techniques now at our disposal mean that this time our investigations should establish when the Ring of Brodgar was built and help us learn a great deal more about it."
Is the Stone a Forgery?
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has voiced his support for the theory that the stone which was surrendered to King Edward I in 1296 was not the real Stone of Destiny (used at the coronations of Scottish monarchs since the Ninth Century).
Instead Edward took off to Westminster Abbey a fake and Scotland's iconic symbol was kept in Scotland - location unknown.
The First Minister has reignited the debate by supporting the view that the Abbot of Scone (where the stone was located at that time) had passed off a forgery. The stone was placed under the throne in London - and English and then United Kingdom monarchs have been crowned since then while sitting above it.
The First Minister rejected the idea of seeing if science could resolve the issue, saying it would be better to leave the mystery unsolved.
Mythologies of Place: How Our Own Personal Histories Intersect the Land of Our Ancestors
New Film on Scotland's Stone of Scone
EDINBURGH - A host of stars attended the world premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival of the new film Stone of Destiny.
The film, directed by Charles Martin Smith, tells the story of the theft of the stone from Westminster Abbey in 1950. It stars Scots Billy Boyd and Robert Carlyle, along with American Kate Mara, all of whom attended the event.
Academy Award winners Sir Sean Connery and Tilda Swinton also attended the gala screening at Cineworld in Fountainbridge.
The origins of the Stone have been lost to history but it is believed to have been used at Iona and Scone for enthroning a succession of monarchs.
It was captured by Edward I of England in 1296, who took it south and placed it in Westminster Abbey, where it remained for the next 700 years.
On Christmas Day 1950, four nationalist students stole the Stone from Westminster Abbey in London and drove it north.
It resurfaced around four months later, after being deposited by the thieves in Arbroath Abbey, draped in a saltire, and was taken back to England.
The script is based on the memoirs of one of the students, Ian Hamilton, who is played by Charlie Cox.
On St. Andrews Day, November 30, 1996, the Stone of Destiny was returned to Scotland and installed in Edinburgh Castle.
THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK overlooking the River Lee.
ElvOW my window glides the dark green, tree-shrouded flow of the river Lee's southerly arm near the campus of University College Cork where the students of St. Finbarr congregated in the Seventh Century.
Since then, the little ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
settlement has grown until it has - well - swamped the swamp, but the Lee still finds its way down to the port town of Cobh where countless ships, including the Titanic, paused for supplies before venturing on the treacherous North Atlantic.
With the opportunity to come visit the Boole Library at Cork's university, it seemed appropriate to compose my monthly article here. It so happens that the hurling face-off between Cork and its rival Tipperary is today, and the city has been increasingly packed with the spirited wearers of the Cork red and Tipperary blue.
Having never enjoyed the opportunity to see Cork before, I spent the afternoon yesterday walking the streets after the library closed and, turning a corner, suddenly found myself looking at a great sign that proclaimed boldly "You are now entering Rebel territory!"
Momentarily taken aback by this sudden reference to the period before the Irish Republic's birth and all the associations that go with it -the last showdown of the Easter Rising of 1916 at the Dublin Post Office (still bearing the scars from that then-unsuccessful bid for independence), Michael Collins and his 13 gunmen, and the brutal civil war of 1922 and '23 that followed the partitioning of the six counties of present day Northern Ireland — I stood blinking until I realized that 'the Rebels' was the name of the Cork Hurling team.
I live for such moments, when the past suddenly sweeps up and stuns you with an unexpected vista. I entered the often perplexing and inconstant world of Academia for
.... there are few of us in our city who are not living in a kind of exile from the original
sites of our cultural memory.
such moments and it is also why I love coming to Europe.
Our history is ever-present to us in two ways: in the landscape and in our families, but somehow the landscape has a better memory than many of our families.
Until my brother and I started digging into our ancestral roots, for example, my own family had forgotten that it was the eldest brother of four siblings who brought us Ackens from Scotland to North America after their father was killed in 1746.
I had an opportunity this past Robbie Burns day, just before addressing the haggis, to brandish the sword donated by Lord Lovat, Chief of Clan Fraser, to Simon Fraser University.
This sword, I was told, saw action with the Frasers on the Plains of Abraham and on the fields of Culloden, and I couldn't wonder at how this tangible remnant of that conflict was still present when the memory of my ancestor had so faded from his posterity.
But if we forget our individual pasts, shaped by the lives and narratives of our forebears, the land - like swords - never seems to.
By JAMES ACKEN
Here in Ireland, the royal centres of Tara, Caiseal, Navan Fort and Rath Croghan still stand despite attempts to modernize the countryside and provide (pardon the sarcasm) safe and efficient conveniences for a new Ireland.
Navan Fort, once Emain Macha, and Rath Croghan, once Rath Cruachan, were the respective seats of the great feuding rulers of the Tain B6 Cuailgne: Conchobar of the Ulaid (now Ulster) and Aillil and Medb of the Connachta (now Connaught).
The bus from Dublin to Belfast still runs near Ballaree: its Anglicised name masking the Gaelic Baile Fhir Dhiadh, the Ford of Fer Dia, where Cu Chulainn fought against his own foster-brother and was forced to kill him with a semi-magical feat of heroic prowess after three days of fighting. His foster-brother's name, Fer Diad, simply means "the man from Diad" - a kind of early Irish "High Plains Drifter" who would have certainly out-squinted Clint Eastwood.
Here in Cork the past is alive and well. Colaiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh, the National University of Ireland's college in Cork, proudly continues "teaching where Finbarr taught," as their slogan claims.
The marsh may be gone, but the river remains on whose banks the students of Finbarr first congregated. Our own personal histories intersect the land's history in places like this, giving that sweeping sense of the past opening before us and connecting with us in often unknown ways.
Or perhaps it is simply my own familiarity with early Ireland that fosters that sense of a sweeping history.
Vancouver certainly has a vast and distant history, but one recorded in the memory of a different people. I have only just begun to understand the importance of places like False Creek - once a central, diplomatic meeting-place for the local peoples here.
Perhaps in each culture there is a mythology of place formed by the intersection of personal and local history, but it seems to me that there are few of us in our city who are not living in a kind of exile from the original sites of our cultural memory.
Dr. JamesAcken is a medievalist who has taught courses for several departments at Simon Faser University and served as the Assistant Coo rdi nator for the Ce ntre fo r Scottish Studies. His fields of expertise include early Gaelic history, literature and palFography with interests in chronography and mythology.