The Agricultural History Society of Ireland's annual conference was held over the weekend of the 29th-31st of July. The connection between agricultural history and environmental archaeology is strong and there is much blurring of the boundaries between what is historical and what might be considered archaeological. It is therefore not surprising that the Discovery Programme's environmentalist, Dr Ingelise Stuijts, is the treasurer of the Agricultural History society and involved in the annual conferences.

This year's conference was held in University College Cork and took advantage of this setting to include trips to the breweries and distilleries of Cork city and the distillery in Midleton in east Co. Cork.

The keynote lecture was given by Mick Monk of UCC and concerned the significance of tillage in early medieval Ireland with an overview of cereal cultivation and corn drying kilns and their dating. Other papers included those on distilling in Munster by the chairman of the Society, Dr Colin Rynne, and the Irish tradition of bog butter deposition by Prof. Chris Synnott.

Kenneth Nicholls spoke on the economics of tillage agriculture featuring detailed information on agriculture and the landscape, a lecture that was eagerly anticipated and did not disappoint. Norman Campion discussed industrial milling and of especial interest was the demise of flour mills in Ireland, a reduction from around 2700 corn mills in the 1880s to only 2 mills left in the present day Republic of Ireland (Dublin and Portarlington) with another one in Belfast. David Dickson spoke about the historical background to agriculture in Cork and showed some real gems of illustrated books on farming. Peter Foynes spoke at length on the many anecdotal communications housed at the Butter Museum.

The significant knowledge of Coilin Rynne on industrial archaeology was especially evident during the walking trip through Cork. Iron smithing, Viking settlements, toghers and bridges were all discussed while walking past quiet breweries no longer spewing forth the scent of hops into the city air.