Digging the Lost Down of Carrick
From 2018-2022 we excavated the site of Carrick, in the Irish National Heritage Park, in County Wexford. The site, built in the autumn of 1169 by Robert FitzStephen, was the first recorded Anglo-Norman castle in the country. A stone castle, medieval borough (town) and deerpark also latter developed in the thirteenth century. However, despite the historical importance of Carrick, or its location within a heritage park, the site was not well known. Excavations from 2018 assessed the twelfth century earth and timber castle, thirteenths century stone castle, fourteenth century hall and ended with investigating the possible eastern fringes of the borough. These excavations, and their associated outreach, have been crucial in establishing Carrick’s rightful importance to the medieval histories of Wexford, Ireland and our closest neighbours in England and Wales.
The Project
The excavations were part of a larger ‘Digging the Lost Town of Carrig’ project that was established as a partnership between the IHS, the Irish National Heritage Park and Wexford County Council. The project was delivered so as to maximise the potential for direct and indirect community engagement, included regular public outreach events such as open-days, children camps, pop-up museums, lecture-series, community workshops, immersive community excavations, experimental archaeology activities, vlogging etc. The excavations location in Ireland’s largest open-air museum also provided our project with perhaps unique potential for heritage education, not least as the park attracts 60,000+ visitors annually. The project strove to bring the site ‘back to life’ providing both locals and international visitors a chance to understand in a deeper and more meaningful way what happened at Carrick 850 years ago when the first wave of Anglo-Normans arrived in Ireland!
Find Out More
With the final stratigraphic report (available on request) completed in 2024 the project is now entering a publication and dissemination phase. However the excavation has already been published locally and internationally – see for example: ‘Finding Carrig’ (2018) in Archaeology Ireland, 32 (2). ‘The Effects of Covid-19 on Public Archaeology: A View from Ireland’ (2024) in A Practitioners Guide to Public Archaeology or ‘Archaeological Discoveries from Medieval County Wexford’ (2024) in Eolas: The Journal of the American Society of Irish Medieval Studies, 17. A project highlight occurred in 2019 when we published Carrick, County Wexford: Ireland’s first Anglo-Norman Stronghold to coincide with both the site’s 850th anniversary and an international conference in the park. This edited volume contains a total of 12 chapters from leading historians and archaeologists, exploring the depth of Carrick’s history within its wider landscape context.
