Michael Potterton
Medieval Rural Settlement Project Archaeologist

Contact Details

Telephone: +353 1 639 3039
Email: michael@discoveryprogramme.ie

Biography

Michael was educated at University College Dublin, L’Université de Lumière (Lyon, France) and at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where he completed a PhD on the subject of ‘The archaeology and history of medieval Trim, County Meath’. He started work with the Discovery Programme in February 2003. Michael’s primary academic interest is the middle ages; especially settlement, society and daily life. He enjoys research and the opportunity to convey his enthusiasm for the subject through teaching and conference presentations. Before he came to work for the Discovery Programme, Michael’s research experience included a season of surveying and mapping at the Céide Fields (Co. Mayo), and 18 months as Assistant Director of the multi-period crannog excavations at Moynagh Lough (Co. Meath). Over the years, Michael has lectured widely in Ireland and abroad, at conferences, universities, local societies and schools. In 1996-7 he held a one-year lectureship in the Department of English at the Université de Paris-IV (La Sorbonne); in 2003 he was Visiting Professor at the Department of Celtic Studies, St Michael’s College, University of Toronto; and in 2005 he was a Guest Lecturer at Appalachian State University and East Carolina University in the USA. Since 1998 he has been an Occasional Lecturer at the Department of Modern History, NUI Maynooth, where he has designed, co-ordinated and taught courses on a range of subjects (see details below). In 2006-7 he fulfilled a one-year lectureship at the Department of Archaeology at NUI Galway, and he is currently (2008-9) a Lecturer in the School of Archaeology at University College Dublin. He has been a guest speaker at Trinity College Dublin and Queen's University Belfast. He will return to work at the Discovery Programme in August 2009.

Michael's first book, Medieval Trim: history and archaeology, was published by Four Courts Press in October 2005 and was launched by Minister Noel Dempsey at Trim Castle. Ireland in the Renaissance, c.1540-1660, co-edited with Thomas Herron, was published in 2007. Michael is currently editing (with Christiaan Corlett) a series of publications on aspects of the archaeology of Early and Later Medieval Ireland. The first of these are due to be published in 2009. Michael is the editor of TEA: The European Archaeologist, which is the web-based newsletter of the European Association of Archaeologists. Since spring 2008 he has been assisting with the Mapping Death Project, which is funded by the Heritage Council under the INSTAR programme.

Publications

Books:

In Press: Spring 2009: (ed. with Christiaan Corlett), Rural settlement in medieval Ireland. Wordwell, Bray. 200pp.

Forthcoming: 2009 (with Margaret Murphy), The Dublin region in the middle ages: settlement, land-use and economy. The Discovery Programme, Dublin. 500pp.

Forthcoming: 2009 (ed. with Christiaan Corlett), Death and burial in early Medieval Ireland. Wordwell, Bray. 200pp.

2007: (ed. with Thomas Herron), Ireland in the Renaissance, c.1540–1660. Four Courts Press, Dublin. 384pp.

2005: Medieval Trim: history and archaeology. Four Courts Press, Dublin. 464pp

Peer Review Journals:

In Press: Spring 2009: (with Margaret Murphy), ‘Mapping a medieval landscape? The Civil Survey and land-use in medieval Dublin’ in John Bradley, Alan Fletcher and Anngret Simms (eds), [for inclusion in a forthcoming festschrift]. Four Courts Press, Dublin (12,000–word paper).

2005: (with Margaret Murphy) ‘Investigating living standards in the medieval Dublin region’. In Seán Duffy (ed.), Medieval Dublin VI: Proceedings of the Friends of Medieval Dublin Symposium, 2004. Dublin (pp 224–56).

2002: ‘The lordship of Meath and the liberty of Trim, Ireland, 1172–1425’. In Guido Helmig, Barbara Scholkmann and Matthias Untermann (eds), Medieval Europe, centre, region, periphery: proceedings of the 3rd International Conference of Medieval and Later Archaeology, Basel 2002 (3 vols, Hertingen), vol. i, pp 533–7.

Other Journals:

In Press: Spring 2009: Review of An archaeology of southwest Ireland (by Colin Breen). In Landscape History.

2008: Review of Irish walled towns (by John Givens). In Irish Arts Review (vol. xxv, no. 3, autumn 2008), pp 144–5.

2006: Review of Cambridge and its economic region, 1450–1560 (by John S. Lee). In The Journal of Economic History (vol. lxvi, issue 3, September 2006, pp 829–30).

2006: Review article on Trim: Irish Historic Towns Atlas, no. 14 (by Mark Hennessy). In Ríocht na Midhe: records of Meath Archaeological and Historical Society (vol. xvii, pp 332–7).

2005: (with Margaret Murphy) ‘Feeding Dublin: investigating the hinterland of Dublin in the medieval period’. In Juanita Browne (ed.), Heritage Outlook. Kilkenny, winter 2005/spring 2006 (p. 13).

2005–present: TEA: The European Archaeologist. The newsletter of the European Association of Archaeologists. Editor, Issue 23: Summer 2005 (June 2005); Issue 24: Winter 2005–2006 (November 2005); Issue 25: Summer 2006 (June 2006); Issue 26: Winter 2006–2007 (November 2006); Issue 27: Summer 2007 (June 2007); Issue 28: Winter 2007–2008 (November 2007); Issue 29: Summer 2008 (June 2008); Issue 30: Winter 2008–2009 (November 2008).

2002: Reviews of John Bradley, Kilkenny: Irish Historic Town Atlas, no. 10 (Dublin, 2000) and John Bradley, Discover Kilkenny (Dublin, 2000), in Irish Arts Review Yearbook 2002 (Dublin), pp 192–3.

1998–2004: Annual directory of information on archaeology in the Irish parliament (Oireachtas Éireann) [1997–2003]. In British and Irish archaeological bibliography, vol. ii, no. 1 (April 1998), pp 218–21 (with John Bradley), vol. iii, no. 1 (April 1999), pp 225–9; vol. iv, no. 1 (April 2000), pp 224–30; vol. v, no. 1 (April 2001), pp 208–15; vol. vi, no. 1 (April 2002), pp 203–10; vol. vii, no. 1 (April 2003), pp 227–31; vol. viii, no. 1 (April 2004).