It’s been a while since our last
post but rest assured we have not been idle!
In between writing up the
excavation reports for Monea and Derrywoone, we have been developing an
education pack for Key Stages 2 & 3 and compiling a general reader booklet.
The education pack is based around the three excavations that we have
undertaken and is full of exciting exercises designed to stimulate discussion
about the Plantation period.
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| Front cover of the Education Pack |
The general reader booklet is a
short summary of the excavations that have taken place at Servants Hill,
Derrywoone Castle and Monea Castle. Both the education pack and general reader
text will be available to download from the Dept of Culture, Arts and Leisure
website in due course.
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| Front cover of the General Reader text |
Due to the overwhelming success
of our excavation open days and the positive feedback from our school visits
and volunteers, we have also developed a series of workshops called ‘Hands on
History’, which are aimed at community groups who wouldn’t necessarily get the
opportunity to engage with their local heritage. These workshops will be
delivered in North Belfast and Carrickfergus.
The first event was held on Dec
15th at Art Ability on Agnes St, Belfast with groups from Fort
William and Falls Road. We used some of the artefacts recovered from the
Derrywoone and Monea excavations to describe how people during the Plantation
might have lived and what sort of materials they used to construct their
houses. We also used art to further interpret the artefacts.
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| Launching the 'Hands on History' workshops at Art Ability with Brian McTeggart (DCAL) and William Humphrey MLA (centre). |
We would like to
thank Gary Linton from Art Ability for inviting us to hold the workshop at
their facility and Brian McTeggart (DCAL) and William Humphrey MLA for
launching the workshops.
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| Gavin Donaghy (IAC) explains how the Raven maps have helped us to discover new archaeological sites during this project. |
Our next workshop will be in
early January so stay tuned!
