Edel Bhreathnach, Tara: a select bibliography (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy for the Discovery Programme 1995, reprinted 1998), 173 ++

The book contains a general introductory essay on kingship, mythology, sovereignty, high-kingship, the Uí Néill and ‘synthetic historians’, saints and their biographers, the archaeology and topography of Tara, and the name Temair. There follows a comprehensive bibliography arranged in a large number of relevant categories.

Conor Newman, Tara: An archaeological survey (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy for the Discovery Programme 1997), 376 ++

The first comprehensive (including geophysical) survey of the monuments on the Hill of Tara, with relevant introductory material. The book also proposes for the first time a model for the chronological development of those structures.

Contributors: Joe Fenwick, Kieron Goucher, Thomas Cummins, Mark Noel, Peter O’Connor, Ralph W. Magee and Elizabeth Anderson.

Kieron Denis O’Conor, The archaeology of medieval rural settlement in Ireland  (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy for the Discovery Programme 1998), 144 ++

The book begins by examining the history of medieval rural settlement studies in Ireland, and then considers the subject thematically. Topics include; the role of castles, the nature of English peasant settlement on Anglo-Norman manors and the nature of Gaelic settlement in other areas. Strategies for tackling the various questions identified are considered in detail and the volume includes an extensive bibliography. This book was the scoping document for what became the Discovery Programme Medieval Rural Settlement Project.

Aidan O’Sullivan, The archaeology of lake settlement in Ireland (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy for the Discovery Programme 1998), 236 ++

The book examines the history of such studies in Ireland.  It describes the often overlooked archaeological evidence for the lakeshore habitations of Mesolithic and Neolithic people and outlines the extensive evidence for Bronze Age lake settlements.  It details similar evidence through the all stages of the medieval period. It argues for a new multi-period, regional landscape study, integrating archaeological, historical and palaeoenvironmental evidence.  This book was the scoping document for what became the Discovery Programme Lake Settlement Project..

Aidan O’Sullivan, Foragers, Farmers and Fishers in a coastal landscape: an intertidal archaeological survey of the Shannon estuary (Dublin, Royal Irish       Academy for the Discovery Programme 2001), 345 ++

This volume is part of the Discovery Programme North Munster Project. The book explores the role of the Shannon estuary in the history of the region. Specialist studies look at the geology, soils, hydography and palaeobotany of the area before the newly-discovered archaeology of its past and present coastal wetlands is described and discussed, including: a Neolithic wetland occupation or mortuary site, late Bronze Age houses and trackways, early historic, medieval and post-medieval fishtraps, and the post-medieval shipwrecks.

Contributors: James Lyttleton, Andrew J. Wheeler, Michael G. Healy, Colin Breen, Claire Callaghan, Karl Brady, Mary B. Deevy, Stephen Mandal, Emmet  Byrnes, Chris Blythe, Vincent Butler, Maria Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Anderson and Margaret MacCarthy.

Máiréad Carew, Tara and the Ark of the Covenant (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy for the Discovery Programme 2003), 172 ++

This book describes the story of the British-Israelite ‘excavations’ on Tara (1899-1902) in search of the Ark of the Covenant and places this controversial episode, which saw protests from many of the leading public figures of the time – including W.B. Yeats, Maud Gonne and Arthur Griffith - in the context of Irish national and cultural politics. It reflects on the enduring significance of Tara in the Irish psyche.

Edel Bhreathnach (ed.) The kingship and landscape of Tara (Dublin, Four Courts Press for the Discovery Programme 2005), 536 ++

The book includes prosopographies of the kings and queens of Tara from mythology to the eighth century; a reassessment of the nature of the kingship of Tara; legal aspects of the kingship of Tara; the origin and extent of the place-name Temair; Tara and the supernatural; the archaeology and topography of the kingdom of Brega; and editions of two of the earliest texts relating to the kingship of Tara.

Contributors: Edel Bhreathnach, Paul Byrne, John Carey, Thomas Charles- Edwards, Anne Connon, Charles Doherty, Dónall Mac Giolla Easpaig, Ailbhe Mac Shamhráin, Kevin Murray, Conor Newman and Nollaig Ó Muraíle.

Eoin Grogan, The North Munster Project Volume 1: The later prehistoric landscape of south-east Clare (Dublin, Wordwell for the Discovery Programme 2005), 341 ++

This volume is part of the Discovery Programme North Munster Project.  During    he later prehistoric period in Ireland (middle Bronze Age to Iron Age) the lower catchment of the River Shannon was one of the most important regions in the   country as exemplified by high-status artefactual evidence (sheet gold ornaments   etc), much of it recovered in past centuries without detailed archaeological context.  This book describes the project set up to investigate the richness and    diversity of that context, which revealed the complexity of familial, local and sub- regional landscape organisation in the period. The major implications of this research are explored at a national level in the context of regional characterisation and identity.

Contributors: Tom Condit, Finola O’Carroll, Aoife Daly, Aidan O’Sullivan, Ines   Hagen, Isabel Bennett, Karen Molloy, Finbar McCormick, Emily Murray, Barry     Masterson, Gabriel Cooney, Nora Birmingham and Bernard Guinan.

Eoin Grogan, The North Munster Project Volume 2: The prehistoric landscape of North Munster (Dublin, Wordwell for the Discovery Programme 2005), 226 ++

This volume (related to number 8 above) further evaluates the late prehistoric evidence from the Shannon catchment area and discusses a series of proposed models for the emergence of complex socio-political regional patterns in the late Bronze Age.

Martin Doody, The Ballyhoura Hills Project (Dublin, Wordwell for the Discovery Programme 2008), 732 ++

This is the final report of the Ballyhoura Hills Project which began in 1992 and examined evidence for Bronze Age settlement on the borders of Cork, Limerick and west Tipperary.  As well as general background material, the book contains the reports on the important excavations at Chancellorsland, Conva and the linear earthwork known as the Claidh Dubh, as well as surveys of three hillforts in the Blackwater valley – Caherdrinny, Carntigherna and Castle Gale.

The book also contains detailed reports from twenty-eight specialist contributors.

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C. Fredengren, A. Kilfeather and I. Stuijts , Lough Kinale: studies of an Irish lake (The Discovery Programme Lake Settlement Project: Discovery Programme Monograph No. 8) (Dublin, Wordwell for the Discovery Programme 2010), 292 ++

This book is the result of one module of the Discovery Programme’s Lake Settlement Project. The study examined the archaeology of Lough Kinale from the Mesolithic to the present. Lake archaeology is an under-studied aspect of Irish archaeology and this book is designed to contribute to a better understanding of that topic.

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