Harbison Peter. The Archaeology of Ireland

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976. — 120 p. — ISBN: 0-684-14593-6.Through modern scientific methods it is now becoming possible to learn what Ireland was like long before history was written. A skeleton found in a cave at Kilgreany in southern Ireland has shown that man may have lived in Ireland as early as 9000 BC, at a time when most of the country lay under a blanket of ice, and arctic bears and reindeer roamed the landscape. These earliest inhabitants would have been wandering hunters, but shortly after 4000 BC settlements were formed, and in excavating these it has become apparent that ploughs and domestic animals were in use. Later, great skill was achieved in the art of carving decorations on stone, and some knowledge of astronomy must have existed. In the Earlier Bronze Age, there is evidence that men had developed culinary skills.
But perhaps the most striking social development came with the Vikings, who settled in Ireland in the ninth century AD. Before this, there had been scattered dwellings and isolated monasteries, but now trading centers sprang up, and the market towns of Dublin, Waterford and Cork were founded. At present excavations are taking place in Dublin, revealing a mass of information about life in the narrowmedieval streets — even then the Dubliners were eating cockles and mussels.
Finally, the last chapter of Ireland's archaeology covers the exciting underwater discovery of the remains of several ships of the Spanish Armada. As they tried to limp home to Spain they were wrecked off the stormy coast of Ireland.When Did Man First Arrive in Ireland?
The First Farmers and the Giants of the Boyne Valley.
The Miners of Metal: the Earlier Bronze Age.
The Fort Builders: the Later Bronze Age and the Earlier Iron Age.
Monks and Laymen: the Early Christian Period.
Viking and Medieval Dublin.
The Normans and Cistercians.
'I Have Nothing More to Give Thee': the Spanish Armada.
Epilogue.