The Ancients - Iron Age Ireland

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

How much of Iron Age Ireland is myth, and how much is archaeological reality? At the monumental Hill of Tara, sacred kings ruled over a landscape steeped in ancient ritual and ancestral memory.Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. John Waddell, author of The Celtic World, to explore the truth to be found through the mist and beneath the hills. We hear about legendary rulers like Queen Medb, epic cattle raids, massive ceremonial feasts, and lawless, roaming war bands.MOREIron Age BritainListen on AppleListen on SpotifyOrigins of the CeltsListen on AppleListen on SpotifyPresented by Tristan Hughes. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™Want even MORE Ancients? Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week, PLUS ad-free, early access podcasts AND exclusive subscriber-only Ancients episodes. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. Welcome to the ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And today we journey to Iron Age Ireland, exploring monumental royal sites like the Hill of Tara and Rathcrochen, these great centres of Ireland some 2,000 years ago. Now the story of Iron Age Ireland is steeped in mythology. It was at Tara that King Lewe-McNeil reportedly challenged St. Patrick defending his ancient pagan sovereignty. At Rath Krohan, the formidable Queen Mave launched her legendary cattle raid, while at Navan, King Krahor Mak Nessa ruled Ulster through warrior codes and divine decree. Yet, while surviving mythology paints a vivid picture of these rulers and their kingdoms,

it reflects medieval tradition as much as Iron Age reality. And behind the legends lie a fundamental debate, the question of how, or even if, Ireland became Celtic. Join us as we interrogate the myths and unpack the archaeology of Iron Age Ireland with our guest, Dr John Waddell, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Galway. John, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I'm delighted to be here, thank you, Tristan. And to give us an overview of Iron Age Ireland and some of its greatest sights, Irish prehistory, John, with the Stone Age with the Neolithic, you've got great monuments like New Grange, Bruna Boynia,

Bronze Age you've got the massive hill forts. Does the Iron Age of Ireland, does it feel a bit more obscure? Yes, it does. And for many people, it is perhaps the, but it has been the most obscure of the various periods of Irish prehistory. Part of the reason, I think, is that the population in later prehistory had the unfortunate habit of cremating themselves, so that's the right way to put it. And unlike many other parts of it, Europe where people were sometimes buried with great pomp and ceremony and indeed with marvellous grave goods. When you cremate a burial, you do tend to destroy a lot of useful archaeological evidence, and I blame the practice of cremation.

Part of the dearth of evidence in Iron Age Ireland, because if you leave aside the absence of burials that do tell us so much in archaeology, there is some very fine metalwork and other monuments, of course. So in that respect, the Iron Age is a rich period. It's complicated, of course, because many people use the term Celtic Iron Age to describe it. And this adds yet another dimension to its difficult story, because this distinguishes it from, if you like, the previous Bronze Age and the previous Stone Age. People apply almost an ethnic label to the Iron Age. And, of course, the Celtic question is one I know we'll be talking about at length, but it just complicates the Iron Age picture as well.

Yes, we'll certainly explore that question of the Celts and in Iron Age Ireland. But no such thing is a silly question. First of all, John, when we're talking about Iron Age Island, what length of time roughly should we be thinking? Just to stay with round figures, I mean, let us say 500 BC before Christ to about 500 AD after Christ with the appearance of Christianity and literacy. In other words, the last few prehistoric centuries, undoubtedly iron age. In fact, the use of iron probably began tentatively around 800 BC, but it's only in the later centuries BC that we have lots of evidence for iron usage. These labels, you know, Neolithic Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age are very loose ones. In the past, when various archaeologists tried to write about prehistory in Britain and Ireland, one or two attempted to get rid of these labels, but they have become so entrenched in both the academic and in the popular mind. There is no avoiding them, but they are just very loose and imprecise labels for broad time periods. I guess also because, I mean, here in England, we've done an

episode recently on Iron Age Britain, and then, of course, we finished that almost with the Roman invasion and then the period of Roman Britain. But I guess in Ireland, I mean, there isn't that cut off either is there. I mean, there's interaction with the Romans, but of course, traditions from the Iron Age continue much more clearly in Ireland for many centuries following, let's say, the first century AD. You're absolutely right. That is true. The Romans in Britain did sort of cause some problems for the indigenous population, who, by the way, were Celtic speaking, but we will come back to that thorny question later on. But we were spared, if you're like, any Roman incursions of any major size. But as the work has progressed in recent decades,

it's become very clear that there were very close connections between Ireland and Roman Britain. And eventually, of course, the advent of a Christian church with literacy, the written word, definitely brought prehistory to an end. But again, this wasn't an immediate overturning of old events. As is always the case, the interface between these so-called periods, prehistory, and history are, if you like, somewhat tenuous, you know. It was a long drawn-out process. Can you give us a sense, John, of the geographic layout of Ireland in the Iron Age? What should we be thinking topographically before we explore the stories of the people themselves? The island of Ireland back then, geographically, what should we be thinking about? Well, I mean, the first thing

this springs to mind, of course, is that, like Britain, Ireland was and is an island, which always suggests to people, if you're like, a degree of separateness from the rest of the world. But in fact, in recent years, people have become more and more aware of the fact that water seaways connected people in the past rather than dividing them. In fact, if you think hard about it, certainly in prehistory, both in Britain and in Ireland, sometimes travel by land was far, far more difficult than travel by sea and by river. So coastal routeways and river routeways were probably the prime means of connectivity, both in Britain and Ireland, throughout much of prehistory. We know, of course, that the Romans built very straight roads, but, you know,

until that happened, travel by waterways of one sort or another was probably immensely important. Now, that also means, of course, that they have probably underestimated the degree of connectivity between peoples, both in Britain and in Ireland, in prehistoric times. And the English Channel, for example, was undoubtedly a major factor in connecting England to the continent. And the Irish Sea was a connecting force as well in its own right. Now, people didn't sort of cross these waters in wintertime. They had common sense prevailed, and they probably had certain seasons for sailing, you know. But, I mean, nonetheless, I suppose many of us have had rough ferry crossings that have sort of put us off the notion of prehistoric travel by water.

but our prehistoric ancestors had a better, well, they were more attuned, if you're like, to the season. So they would have travelled in good weather for obvious reasons. What I'm basically saying is that we've underestimated a degree of connectivity between islands. And that applies to Britain and to work. Yes, and by, let's say, 500 BC, you know, that round date for the beginning of Iron Age Ireland, you know, people have been going to and from Ireland in their dug-out canoes in their boats for, well, for millennia before that time, right, John? Absolutely. And I mean, we knew very, very well in this country that hide-built boats, the so-called currants that you see still in the west of Ireland, were widespread in the past. And in fact, there's one rather interesting 17th century illustration of a very large curich, our hide-built boat, that must have been a small sailing craft with a large sail. So you could sometimes have rather large sailing craft made of animal hides.

as well. So again, while the evidence for sailing in prehistory in both Britain and Ireland is there, and plank-built boats and hide-built craft were well known, we still don't know an awful lot about the mechanisms involved in the transport of people and goods in prehistory, but it was certainly very, very significant. And we've underestimated it, as I've said. And John, is it also the case then that although it is a bit more invisible, a bit more obscure the archaeology from the Iron Age. The evidence we have for settlements, as we'll get into, the main settlements, is there a regularly recurring theme that they are near, as you mentioned, they are very close to river systems or they're very close to the coastline,

i.e. very close to places that lots of people could reach them. That is actually a very interesting question, because if you think about it, actually, the famous sites in Irish Iron Age, the Irish Iron Age, like Tara, and the Ruth Krohan in the west of Ireland. And, you know, the Rathcrohan in the west of Ireland, and Navan Fort or Awan Maha in the north are not obviously situated on major routeways. All of them in different ways were located on high ground

in important locations that probably were of some sanctity from at least the Neolithic. So if you like, these places were important places with deep archaeological roots, both chronologically and magically and religiously. So their location-wise, was probably rather little to do with rivers and seaways. Other factors came into play here. Tara, as we know now, was an immensely important site before 3,000 BC of thereabouts,

because it too was an important burial place in the Neolithic. So its story is quite a remarkable one. It can be traced over all those thousands of years until medieval times, when it was still a place of assembly and ritual. And that represents, you know, 4,000 years plus of ceremonial activity, which is rather a remarkable time span when you think about it. Well, as you say, very interesting, if those kind of major centres are actually further away from those rootways, from those connecting systems.

Do we think the more, you know, usually more invisible parts of our age society, the everyday settlements that maybe their footprint on the landscape today is more invisible. Should we be expecting them? Should we be picturing that most of them would have been alongside rivers and places, you know, with good access to fresh water, good access to places where you can grow your crops, graze your animals and so on? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. But they are obviously more difficult to on earth, archaeologically speaking, because they never had the same monumental quality with burial mounds and other earthworks that places like Tara possessed in the past.

People tended to live in very modest accommodation in Irish prehistory, as well indeed was the case in much of Britain too, whereas they devoted an awful lot of energy to building great monuments, speedy hill forts, are burial mounds. So the dead very often got more attention than the living. And this is, I suppose, an important indication of how significant ritual was in the lives of prehistoric peoples. At Tara, you have a sequence of burials that must have reminded visitors for centuries of the presence of ancestors.

So the ancestral places, I think, were probably one of the key elements in an awful lot of activity in prehistoric times. And this is probably the case in Britain too. I mean, today the term Hillfort is often used of many of the first. the great monuments in Britain, but I think people are becoming a little more attuned to the possibility that in addition to being sites with great defences, perhaps they weren't as military as

was sometimes thought that these were assembly places too. Now, I'm not trying to compare English hill force with Tara, but I think there are sites, and there are hill force in Britain that probably had a major ritual dimension to them. And this isn't always easily apparent. It's more visible on the Irish scene, I think, for various reasons, partly because places like Tara have a very rich mythology associated with them, all recorded in medieval Irish literature. This complicates the story for Irish archaeologists because you can't ignore the myth and legend. And it is pretty significant. And this sort of myth and legend does not survive to the same extent elsewhere in Europe, in Britain or indeed in continental Europe. we can blame the Celts for this and I know we'll get

well I mean I'm very glad you mentioned that John because we have done an episode recently on Iron Age Britain and you probably are aware of that amazing discovery in northern England of the Melzambie Horde recently in Yorkshire you know that deposit found near one of those great late Iron Age centres in Britain the opera deristhenic which yes maybe not a hill for but once again that evidence of ritual is there and but you did mention mythology and these stories

that have been preserved, how important is mythology for archaeologists like yourself and others wanting to learn more about the Iron Age and what life was potentially like, the use of certain sites and so on? It's very tricky ground, as you can well imagine. I mean, for many people, the very word myth just means fanciful nonsense, inventive stories. But in fact, ancient myths were, if you're like, the way ancient people's described the world. They had a deep meaning. Now, they're preserved in fragments in medieval Welsh and Irish literature. It's a huge source of intriguing references to rituals and other things in past times. Now, obviously, it's a source that has to be analysed with great care. But to take one example, for instance, if you read up the various stories in medieval Irish literature about the kings of Tara,

it becomes very evident that they were sacred kings. They were examples of sacral kingship. And sacral kingship is something that is known in various societies around the world. These were kings who were not, like, political potent tastes. Their fundamental role was to maintain cosmic order. And if, for example, a sacred king wasn't able to produce good harvests, he would be deposed and there are various instances in the medieval stories of sacred kings who, failed to do what sacred king should do, maintaining the order of the cosmos, and they were

deposed. Another feature of sacral kingship was unblemished physical nature. Once a sacred king was blemished or wounded or deformed in any way, that they were deposed. And this is a ritual that one might eventually trace in archaeology in Britain and Ireland. It suggests at least that in Celtic times, in pre-Roman times, some tribal rulers had a sacral quality. Now, that's not going too far, I think, because when you look at various burials of wealthy Celtic chieftains on the continent, for example, some of them are very strange indeed. There's one or two examples that one could cite. There's a very famous statue of a warrior from the Glauberg in Germany. and if anybody was a sacred king, this individual was.

But anyway, difficulty in proving it, I suppose. But I think the mythology alerts us in many ways to the strangeness of the past. We more often than not tend to look at the past, obviously, to 21st century eyes. But the past was very different in some respects. And I think when it comes to things like sacral kingship and rituals associated with kingship, The mythology in the Irish sources alerts us to this. John, can it also be helpful? I guess, you know, those kernels of truth,

like historical basis for some of these myths that are passed down from generation to generation. If I use like a comparison, many of us will think like famous myths, like the Trojan War, the Iliad, the Odyssey. And this idea, okay, we don't have any archaeological evidence for a king called Agamemnon, who was the king of kings, but we know that in the age it's set

that the place that he ruled from, Seney was actually a very important place. Is there any similar to charity like, let's say, certain Irish myths mention a king from Tara who supposedly ruled at the time of the Iron Age. No evidence for that particular king living, but archaeologically, we do know that Tara was an important centre back then, things like that. Yes. No, I mean, one of the problems here, of course, is that Vytaura is associated with kingship again and again and again, and there are many burial mounds there, apart from an excavation of one that turned out to be a Neolithic passage tool, or earlier than anything anybody ever anticipated on Tara,

excavation have not taken place of any likely sites that might reveal a few scraps about royal burials. And of course, when we got, I mentioned the problem of cremation earlier on. I think if you started digging some of the burial mounds at Tara, you would find lots of traces of burned burials. But if these were kings, the kingly evidence probably went up and smoked with an awful lot else, you know.

The archaeological evidence may be there, but I wouldn't be certain. But the traditions are certainly there. It's a place associated with royalty since time immemorial. And that's why, in fact, the term royal site is used to places like Tara and Avan Maka, the Navanthorne, and indeed Rathrothan. It's because they are associated in myth and legend with kings and queens. And it's, if you like, the mythical dimension has given them this royal designation. it may be a bit misleading.

It would probably better to call them great assembly places because they weren't simply frequented, I think, by the upper echelons of society, but there were places where people came together for all sorts of ritual purposes. And the excavations at Navon Fort

near Armagh have shown that, going right back into the Bronze Age, this was an important place of assembly. The animal bones from some of the wooden structures there, for example, knew or found when careful analysis was done to be from animals that came from perhaps as far away as the west of Ireland. That means that some of the animals that were eaten at Auen Maka in great feasts came from far away.

Now, if you think about it, I don't think they were bought in a local butcher shop and imported that way. They probably were brought by people to Navan for the festivities. So, you know, a great feast at Navon, if you think about it, might well have involved the bringing of animals and, of course, people travel too from various locations in the north and west of Ireland for a particular occasion there. And this would have meant that a great feast was probably preceded almost by a pilgrimage. And the whole ritual is associated with the feast. And those few animal bones were much more complicated than we ever imagined. Gavin was a place where people came to possibly in great numbers on some occasions, hence the importance of assembly in prehistory. The assemblies, absolutely. Well, we'll delve into the archaeology of those sites.

But you did hint earlier, John, and as promised, we want to explore this question of the Celts and this idea of Celtic. So can you explain what is this idea we have today of the Celts arriving in Ireland during this period? what is this idea? This was the traditional notion that the knowledge of iron was brought to the island of Ireland by Celtic-speaking peoples around about 500 BC. And it was a very neat, simple explanation for a new technology. Now we know, of course, that this was not the case. As is always, the real story, as far as we can tell, is much more complicated. I wrote this book, The Celtic World, to try and bring together the story of language and archaeology. because the best definition of an ancient Celt is somebody who spoke a Celtic language.

Now, in the past, all sorts of other definitions have been used, ethnic, racial, and so forth. But a very simple notion that a Celt was somebody who spoke Celtic actually helps us to explain a lot, at least to a certain degree. And if you think about it, there is incontrovertible evidence that Ireland was a Celtic-speaking country in prehistoric times, just as Britain was for the most part a Celtic-speaking island in pre-Roman times. So we can be reasonably sure that Ireland was Celtic-speaking, probably by about 500 BC. There are some sort of historical evidence in names of places for that. But I think archaeology is going to eventually demonstrate that the process of becoming Celtic speaking was something that began earlier in prehistoric times, possibly in the later Bronze Age around

1,000 BC. Because if you look at the Irish evidence, there's pretty little evidence for incomers, for inward migration in either the Iron Age or the preceding later Bronze Age. But what you do have around 1,000 BC in particular, in both Britain and in Ireland, enormous evidence, archaeologically, for trade and exchange. And it's very clear that from around 1,000 BC in particular, the seaways that are we already mentioned, and the great rivers of Europe, the Thames, the Rhine, the Rhône, the Rhone, the Rwarr. These were great routeways. The Danube literally collected Central Europe with Eastern Europe.

And these were great root ways for what we would call trade and exchange. But when you remember it, trade and exchange means people. And people were traveling along with their myths and legends and languages as well. So there was, I think, archaeology suggests a ferment of connectivity in the later Bronze Age. And that is the time, I think, when the Celtic languages, the Celtic language develops, and people begin to speak a common language. Linguistic scholars actually suggest that the evidence we have from inscriptions in Spain and in France and elsewhere suggest that in the pre-Roman times that the Celtic languages were probably mutually intelligible, so to speak.

There's a great difference now between Welsh, for example, and Scots Gallic and indeed modern Ireland. In fact, they're virtually unintelligible one to the other. They are very different. But this, some scholars would argue was not the case in pre-Roman times, that there was a greater degree of similarity between the Celtic languages. And this would have been a unifying factor, and it would have meant that stories and myths, along with trade and exchange, were an important part of the human story in France, in Germany, in Britain and in Ireland,

in these exciting centuries. And that's when, if you like, the Celts begin to emerge slowly. onto the scene of archaeology and history eventually. So this is what archaeology is saying. It's not this idea of just one big migration of people arriving at one time. This is more likely it's this island becoming Celtic, becoming Celtic speaking largely, dominantly happens over centuries, and it's because of the trade and connections across the Irish Sea.

And almost this idea of traders going up the rivers or visiting those great centres of the late bronze, So before the Ireland, you know, because Ireland's Bronze Age is the time of Hill Forst, isn't it? When you're in Britain, you think Iron Age of Hillford, but in Ireland it's the Bronze Age, so people going there. Yeah. There's a strange difference here that still remains reasonably unexplained. But we mustn't rule out the possibility of the mobility of people as well, because genetic studies are now beginning to revolutionise our understanding of prehistory.

And this is one of the most exciting things to have happened in archaeology in both continental Europe and in Britain and in Ireland. We're now just a handful of studies that are beginning to show that people were moving from place to place significantly. And this will certainly become clearer in the years to come. So the story will be not just trade and exchange important though they were where they were, but certainly a story of the movement of peoples as well, but not huge groups, but nonetheless significant groups from one place in Europe to another. And that will become, I think, an exciting part of the story in years become. Hi there, just before we return to the episode, I wanted to pop in here to tell you about the

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Our most recent instalment was with the best-selling author Robert Harris, dissecting the history that inspired several of his novels from papal conclaves to the late Roman Republic. And like most of us ancient history nerds, Well, Robert, he thinks about the Roman Empire almost daily. Here he is explaining why. Given that you've known quite a few novels on ancient Rome and the Roman Republic, how often do you think about the Roman Empire? Well, it's sort of part of my profession.

So obviously, I do tend to think about it. I would think more than most people. They were an immensely disciplined, creative, fighting city-state. and no one could cope with them. And the empire was a mighty one, and in a way, it never entirely went away. I mean, one of the things I felt when I wrote Conclave was that this is the Roman Empire. It survived in this arc of the Vatican, and there is the pontifix Maximus, and they have a curia, and it's all male, and so much of it is just a survival of the Roman era.

To hear more about the history behind Robert's books, from Pompeii to the Dreyfuss Affair, and to listen to the rest of the episode, sign up to History Hit. Their subscriber episodes every fortnight, and access to hundreds of original documentaries. That's historyhit.com slash subscribe, or click the link in the show notes. That's history hit.com slash subscribe. Well, let's go to another of your, you know, your big topics, and one of the most couple when talking about Iron Age Island, which is delving more into the archaeology itself of the Hill of Tara. So, John, if someone visits the Hill of Tara today and sees the remains,

like seize the earthworks and so on, what would you see? I mean, what can you see on the ground and kind of what different periods of history are we thinking of? Well, when you go to the Hill of Tara today, there is a small interpretive centre that offers an explanation. And if you make sure you are well acquainted with the story as presented there, it will make some sense. Many People who go to the Hill of Tarah just immediately head straight to the highest point. And that is a large burial mound called the Mound of the Hostages. Now, the Mount of the Hostages gets its name from a medieval story, supposedly the place for hostages or something like that, but that doesn't concern us.

It's the highest point on the hill. And if you climb through its summit or even stand close by, you have magnificent views over the central plain of Ireland, the flat lands to the north and west. But that's a distraction in a sense. Now, the high ground was important, as I think I probably mentioned, for many of these places. But that particular mound is a Neolithic passage tomb, built long before the long, complicated story develops on the Hill of Tara. Some years ago, a colleague of mine here in Galway, Connor Newman, took a look at another earthwork on that hill called the Banqueting Hall. And this is a very long pair of parallel earthen banks.

It's on the northern side of that famous hill. Most people don't even see it today, even though it's quite prominent. But if you go to the so-called banqueting hall and stand within the banks, you'll realize that your views of the outside world are obscured because the banks, even in their degraded form, are still quite high. It's a long processional routeway from the northern end of the hill to the center of the summit of the hill of Tara. And Newman suggested that this was a processional, way that was used as rituals to take the royal visitors on a royal inauguration route to the summit of the hill itself. And it has the banqueting hall, it never was a banqueting hall. It's far too big to be even, you know, a hall of any description. It has puzzling gaps in its banks that allow the visitor

to look left and right to the outside world. And the theory promoted then was that it was a procession way that allowed the royal procession to move to the sacred center of the hill, getting views of the various burial mounds and other monuments to left and to right. And these would have reminded a person to be inducted into the sacral kingship of the ancestors of the past stories of previous incumbents on the sacred hill. And rather like the Roman-Apian way. lined by funerary monuments. Here you had a processional way it has been suggested. That was a great sacred route into the hill and to the centre for inaugurations.

It's just a good reminder that there were stories here attached to the monuments that we now have completely lost. There are dozens and dozens of burial mounds on the hill, many of them now barely visible to the naked eye. and they too in their day must have held ancestral memories, again, all now lost. And in fact, a number of years ago, geophysical survey on the hill produced a huge, traces of a huge circular timber structure, four or five times the size of Stonehenge. And that would have stood prominently like Stonehenge on the hill around probably about 2000 BC. see. There's no trace of it today, though you will in aerial photographs see faint traces of the circle. It's a reminder too that, you know, huge timber circles, that probably predating Stonehenge,

were a feature of the landscapes in both Britain and in Ireland, and certainly this was the case on Tara. And it's a further indication of the rich and importance of the place as an assembly place in the past. And because it was so important, I think people wanted to be buried there, generation after generation. and an interesting detail when it comes to the burial mounds is they very often intersect as if you wanted to you placed your burial mound partly over an older burial mound as if you wanted to connect with ancestral remains both to legitimize your presence there and then perhaps to convey a story the myths we have of tara now are only the faintest scraps of the stories that must have been associated with a place like that ancestral memories

ran deep on that hill, as they did as other sites of the same sort in the country. So we should think with the importance of Tara, a place like Tara, back in the Iron Age for people, I guess probably as well, John, you can tell me if I'm wrong here, maybe for the higher ranking people, the higher up people in these Iron Age settlements, is the fact that to them it's already an ancient landscape, it's already ancient history, it's got very amounts that they can see, and so they want to align. themselves with those people, as you say, be buried there, have certain rituals there where they have all the community come to the top of the hill as well to do their feasting or, you know, ritual

deposits and similar things like that? It wouldn't be too far-fetched to try and draw a comparison with, say, Westminster Abbey, for example, where they, the great were buried with pomp and ceremony and whose, you know, memories are still enshrined in various ways in inscriptions and in monuments there. Now, the monuments in Westminster Abbey speak to the public because they are written very often and are inscribed. Sadly, we don't have any inscriptions on the Tara monuments, so that's the mystery. But if you're like, the notion was still the same, trying to sort of present and preserve a historical story and to remember the past in different ways. Do we have any idea? I know the archaeology, there isn't too much, but from excavations there are all.

elsewhere, just how magnetic a place like the Hill of Tara could have been people, as in how far and wide people could have ventured to Tara from elsewhere in Ireland or indeed from beyond from across the IRC. Do we have any idea about that? Well, I think it was a magnetic place. Again, to draw another analogy, I wouldn't say necessarily Westminster Abbey is the best parallel. But imagine comparing, say, Tara to the Vatican today. The Vatican is famous because it has a 2000-year-old history almost, and it is the burial place of a very important St. St. Peter. And it was this and its subsequent history that over centuries drew people to it for religious reasons. And in a sense, I think to draw an analogy like that makes some sense

when trying to describe a place like Tara. It had a magnetic quality because going there, well, possibly like the Hage. Maybe, in fact, it helped you to, um, well, improved your chances in the next life to some extent. But, I mean, it's also suggested, of course, that assemblies in prehistory, both in Ireland and elsewhere, had other more mundane roles as well. In a sense, they probably had a religious focus, but they possibly also were occasions for, you know, trade and exchange and indeed other more joyful activities of one sort or another. But I think the religious dimension may well have been a significant one. And this brings us back, in fact, to sort of some

British monuments like Stenic. They too probably had a religious dimension to them that is now very difficult to uncover, you know. Well, I mean, I also think of the other kind of big opidum that you think of, which is Colchester and Cameludanum, which we know. First off, with the ditches, it's not like a hill fort, they're not completely like circular. They're kind of, they're guide in traffic, and they guide the people past tombs, like the Lexington burial. and there's this Gosbex, the site where you have like a late Iron Age sanctuary as well there and then lots of open space. So in many ways, it sounds kind of similar to the Hill of Tower and what it could be. I think that's an excellent point and I should have made it myself,

but you're dead wise. I mean, there are similarities once you start looking for them. People were engrossed in ritual in prehistory. It was like the moving force behind daily life. In fact, daily life in prehistory was, you know, the ritual, And if you like, the sacred and the profane were not, if you like, separated as they are today. Ritual permeated daily life. And pile assemblies were probably the high point of certain activities. There would have been much more on a daily basis that was ritual as well. And Camel Adun was a very good example of that.

Yeah. Well, there you go. I'm glad that could be of help. And John, even though the archaeology at Tara, no evidence surviving of actually kings being there in the Iron Age, but we've got to delve into at least one of these stories. Are there any great legends of kings from Ireland who supposedly reigned and had a lot of power in the Iron Age? Well, there is one king that probably deserves mention

because he's now almost completely forgotten. This is a king associated with Rathcrawan in the west of Ireland. This is Dahi, and he was famous in medieval times because people began to invent things about Dahi. And as far as we know, much of his story is actually medieval invention. He was said to have actually gone to the continent and indulged in a military foray, possibly into Switzerland to the foot of the Alps. And this was a story that actually captured popular attention, particularly in the 19th century, because for some people, it was

an example, or an instance, of Ireland's military prowess abroad. Now, Dali was the last pagan king of Ireland, as I said, I think, but he probably just engaged in the occasional raid into Britain, He never ventured into Switzerland. There was never an Irish invasion of Switzerland. And according to the story, his bones were brought. He was killed by a flash of lightning at the foot of the Alps and then brought back to Ireland. He was supposedly buried in Ralph Cougham. But this appears to be simply invention. As I said, no invasions of Switzerland, not an example of Ireland's military prowess.

But he was famous in song and story in the 19th century until he was eventually occluded by the rise of the even better warrior, Cuhullin. So the story is a brilliant one, but one that eventually means he was forgotten, sadly. It's a great story, John, and that teases up nicely to then go to this next place on my list, and I apologise if I'm going to butcher the pronunciation of it. Ratcrofton in Roscommon? Yes, Rathcoughan in Roscommon. Again, it's a royal site, so-called because that figures, well, kings and queens figure

prominently in its story. And it's famous because one of the great tales in medieval Irish literature is the town Bo Koolna, the cattle raid of Kuli. The Irish Iliad. Well, indeed. It's a great story of a great cattle raid and a great conflict between Queen Mave in Rat Cron and her Ulster counterparts and the great warrior Kuhullan figures prominently in the story. It is an epic tale, but there's also very extraordinary mythological elements in it as well, because at the core of a tale is a great mythic battle between two bulls. The story starts because, in fact, Queen Mave is jealous and wants a bull to match her husband's bull, and she tries to get it by various means, fair, and foul. But anyway, at the end of the story, after much bloodshed,

and warfare, the bulls engage in a great battle. And one of them eventually is the winner before racing off and eventually dying himself. But these are mythic elements in a very complicated tale that has, I think, layer after layer in it going back into prehistoric times. It was certainly embellished in medieval times. So it's a complicated narrative. But it has brought, if you like, great fame to Rathcrowman in the West of Ireland. and Queen Mave, despite all the academic disagreements about her nature, is now a firm sort of figure

associated with this. And she's often presented as a formidable female warrior, even though I think at heart she is a mythic invention, you know, but we can never be sure. But in regards to the archaeology from Rachrochen, is it, like, do we think, do you think, do archaeologists think that the purpose of this great centre was quite similar to Tara? Is the archaeology pretty similar as well? Are we talking about just another type of Torah but in the west of Ireland? To a degree, yes. There are quite a few burial mounds in the complex at Rathcrohan,

along with various medieval enclosures. So it was a site that was obviously used into the medieval period as well. But the burial mounds, some of them are certainly Iron Age in date, and some may even be older. But there's also a very large focal monument that is a huge mound about 80 metres in diameter. and while it's never been excavated, it has been geophysically surveyed. And the geophysical survey there, many years ago, produced evidence of all sorts of internal structures. So there are similarities between the great mound at Rathcron and the mound at Navon Fort, which was excavated.

And excavation at Navon did produce traces of a great circular wooden temple predated by a series of great round houses. and evidence for feasting. So it's possible, even though we can't be certain, that the great mound that is the centrepiece of Rathcrotten, was a monument in some ways similar to the great mound at Navon, which dates from around, oh, well, 100 BC or thereabouts in its heyday, I suppose. So there are similarities, but of course there are differences as well. But again, just like Navan and Tara, Rathcrawan has this great weight of mythology attached to it that both adds to the picture, and obviously complicates them for archaeologists as well. Well, let's move away from those royal sites now

because I appreciate time is limited, but a larger theme that we get from the Iron Age, generally in Britain but also in Ireland, and this idea of conflict, of warfare, not with external powers, but between different centres. Do we get any sense of that in the Iron Age, John? Do we get a sense that the people who are living near someone, say, like Ralph Crohn would be fighting against those, let's say, at Tara and, let's say, you know,

capturing people as slaves and so on and so forth. Warfare was probably endemic, but not warfare as we know it today, thankfully. Communal fights of one sort or another were probably a means of expressing both territorial prowess and your own sort of communal strength. And it was probably engaged in by a minority of males. And the Iron Age evidence is, in Ireland is relatively slim because the swords all survived are all very small and are not very impressive weapons. But if you go back in time to the Bronze Age, when there are large numbers of weapons, shields and spears surviving, it's very clear that certainly in the later Bronze Age, Ireland was participating just like Britain in a very sort of martial society.

warfare and warriors loom very prominently in the archaeological record in the later Bronze Age in particular. They are less prominent in the Iron Age, but nonetheless they are there. And I think that there was probably across much of Europe a military caste that was both powerful and warlike. The evidence suggests that they have, well, they loom large in the archaeological. record, almost to the exclusion of the bulk of the population who probably didn't quite have the same, if you like, warlike mentality. We're looking at a warrior elite, and that's a feature of both the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in Britain and Ireland. And we get focused on these elites because they are obviously fascinating to see and have produced marvellous bronzes

and decorated metalwork. But the bulk of the population was not elite. They were the farmers and the fishermen. They were probably the stalwarts of a society that allowed its elites to actually go up and engage in spasmodic combat from time to time. And there's an interesting element here that probably is worth noting. Some of the medieval Irish tales tell of the fiona. These are the warriors of a heroic Finn McCool. and there are many tales of their fighting and feasting and elopements. And I mentioned this in the Celtic world,

because actually the stories of the fiener, for the most part, seem to be medieval inventions. The original fian was a war band, and there are traces of it both in France and elsewhere in pre-Roman times. the original fian, and it's certainly sort of mentioned by very early Irish writers in medieval times, were groups of landless young men who were allowed to roam in a lawless fashion, engaging in pevery, robbery, occasional murder, perhaps sexual violence from time to time. And they were allowed rather like juvenile delinquents to wander the sort of the countryside

until they reached maturity and became, if you like, members of the community. It's an Indo-European society, and its roots can be found in various parts of Europe, traces of it can be found in various parts of Europe. The Fian were war bans allowed to roam freely, and that's something we don't always associate with Celtic society, and yet it does seem to have been the case. The Galates in France, for example, where probably, fian warband types.

And I think it's something we're rather uncomfortable with that there were notions of juvenile delinquents tolerated in prehistory to for a number of years before they got sense. And yet the evidence there in medieval Ireland suggests that this was the case. They are mentioned by early Christian writers with a certain amount of disgust and annoyance because they were obviously disproved of. But they were an aspect of society that raises also as a very intriguing. questions about the nature of warfare, I suppose, and brigandage in pre-Roman times. And we think, yeah,

so Arnage Island, they could have been meek, these bands of Briggins, as you say, which is, that's very interesting. Yes, yes. And of course, also kind of harking back to that, the Irish idiot, the cattle-raid story, of course, you know, so cattle rustling is a thing, so that's also very interesting. It was a way of

sort of proving yourself and the strength of your, you know, political prowess, I suppose. Yes, and this made the case elsewhere as well. So, John, I wish I could ask so much, but I mean, we're very grateful to have, you know, just an hour of your time. We could talk about so many other aspects of Iron Age Ireland. We haven't even talked about bog bodies, but we'll say that for another time, Connie Claver and Man and so on and so forth, but the story of Iron Age Ireland and everyday Celtic-speaking peoples, as those centuries

go on, are their lives actually still very invisible, or can we look to have placed like Britain, and can we imagine, you know, that they're all farmers, they live in roundhouses, you know, they're in smallish communities, but they're making a living, very much agrarian societies. Can we still get glimpses into what everyday life would have been like for an everyday ironish person in Ireland? In Ireland, it's rather difficult because excavations of iron age settlements are few and far between. You have a much richer archaeological story in Britain.

delve into. And excavations at numerous sites have demonstrated, if you're like, the richness of the evidence for ordinary settlement and domestic activities. The evidence in Ireland has been and is harder to come by. But I'm recently convinced that there were not huge differences in the two societies. People lived in small houses. They were farming communities. In Ireland, certainly cattle raising and crop growing was important. And the same was true. in Britain. And on one level, there were certain similarities. And of course, as we've said before, there were differences. John, this has been fantastic. If listeners could remember only one thing from our chat, of course they'll remember much more. But if they did, what should we take away

about Iron Age Ireland today? What do you really want to get across about the realities of Ireland back in the Iron Age? Well, I think it's Celticity, if that's the right word to use. This brings me back to the book, the Celtic world, because when people share the language, they shared much more. And archaeology has prompted us, I think, to look at the differences in material, culture between Ireland and Britain and the continent. But many things were shared, including an extraordinary Celtic art style. So I think it behoves us to look at the similarities occasionally and to remember that these were people who shared stories and indeed shared a language. John, this has been absolutely fantastic. Last but certainly not least, your book, your most recent book is called?

The Celtic World, History. I should really have called it actually the discovery of the Celtic world. Attempt to show how the Celtic world was discovered by linguists and archaeologists, but maybe a subtitle sometime in the future. Well, and also, if anyone wants to delve into the archaeology of all of prehistoric Ireland, you've written a series of editions, a textbook with the prehistoric archaeology of Ireland. I have a copy in front of me as well, very useful when we did prehistoric. Arland documentary a few years ago. So I'll also shout out that work too. And John, you are a legend in the story in the field of Irish archaeology. It just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. I'm glad you didn't call me a myth. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Tristan. Well, there you go. There was Dr. John Waddell talking all things Iron Age Ireland. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Now, while we've explored the archaeology of sites like Tara and Rathcrochen, there is still so much more to Iron Age Ireland's story, and so we will have to do future episodes on the ancients all about it. We'll have to take a closer look at the stunning, intricate Latin art style that swept across Ireland during the Iron Age. And we'll also have to delve deep into individual epic myths, like the Castle Raid of Queen Mave, the so-called Irish Iliad.

So stay tuned for those. We'll have to cover them in future. episodes. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Ancients. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us, and you'll be doing us a big favor. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, while we'd really appreciate that. And don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com slash subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.

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