Month: July 2002
Roman Ireland: What did the Romans ever do for us?
Is Roman Ireland nothing more than wishful thinking? Exploring Ireland's forbidden archaeology is a tricky business... A Jaw-dropper On a pleasant Sunday morning early in 1996, I was traveling to work, when my jaw hit the rather grubby floor of the bus on which I was sitting. The reason for my cartoon like gob-flapping was the banner headline from The Sunday Times. I was, at the time, studying in what is now known as NUI Maynooth, (formerly known as just good old 'Maynooth') for a degree in Classics and English, so the newspaper headline was of some interest to me. It claimed that conclusive evidence had been discovered - or at least had been made public - that could lend proof to that most heretical of archaeological whisperings. I refer, of course, to the greatest of Irish historical conspiracies: the theory that at some long forgotten time in our past,...