The Medieval Rural Settlement Project (MRSP) commenced in 2002 to consider the nature of the archaeological landscape associated with rural Ireland in the period c. 1100-1650 AD. The Project has four principal modules, each of which will result in a significant monograph publication. The modules were chosen to represent a cross-section of the diverse cultural landscape that is embodied in later medieval Ireland.
The first module considers the lands around Dublin city, the country’s medieval capital. In what is essentially a desk-based study, the ‘Dublin region’ module seeks to identify the primary land-holding structure and land-use as defined by a combination of surviving documentary sources and available archaeological evidence. It is aimed at assessing the nature of the archaeological record that has been generated in recent decades by extensive excavation activity. The Dublin module is to be published shortly as the Project’s first monograph.
The second module is a detailed study of an Anglo-Norman manor in Co. Carlow, where the relatively simple techniques of field-walking and geophysical survey, combined with an analysis of surviving manorial accounts, are providing a rich insight to the manor’s demesne and associated areas.
The bulk of the Project’s resources have however been devoted to the study of the O’Conor lordship in Co. Roscommon, as a case-study that examines the origins and development of a Gaelic lordship in this period. Two levels of enquiry are being pursued: field reconnaissance coupled with ortho-imaging, geophysical survey and micro-excavation and environmental sampling is providing a highly defined insight to the wider landscape of the lordship area; while excavation has been conducted on the site of one of the lordly centres in Tulsk. Each of these components will be the subject of a separate monograph