Sam Moore interviewed on Canadian radio

Sam Moore was interviewed about the Archaeology of Gatherings Conference on Canadian radio on Sunday morning.  You can catch a podcast of his interview here. It starts at 24:31 minutes into the podcast.    The radio show is The Gaelic Hour on the Ottowa station CJLL 97.9FM hosted by Austin Comerton.

Online booking closed but tickets still available ...

Online booking is now closed (Friday 1pm). We still have tickets available so please come along and register on the day. Registration is from 8:30am on Saturday morning. Papers start at 9:30.

Tickets still available

We still have tickets available for the conference, so book either on line or come along and register on the day - Registration is open 8:30-9:30 on Saturday in the main foyer of IT Sligo and papers will start at 9:30 sharp.

The 4th Earl of Sandwich is getting ready for his part ...

(I suspect he will outsource the lunch to our caterers as his cook has been dead for a couple of hundred years).  The preparations are hotting up here in Sligo as we make the final arrangments for the Archaeology of Gatherings.  We look forward to seeing you there so get your ticket now.

Who's who at the conference 27th October

Our Sunday morning session begins with a paper by Dr Una MacConville, Visiting Fellow, Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, UK.  Her paper is entitled 'Gatherings on the ‘Far side banks of Jordan’'.

Perceiving the presence of deceased relatives gathering around a terminally ill person—more commonly referred to as deathbed visions—is a relatively frequent experience in the last weeks and days of life. While the evidence for gatherings of this form is non-material and thus difficult to capture, deathbed visions are well documented, in the historical record and also in early medical textbooks. 

This paper will present results of a recent Irish study with health care professionals regarding their observations and understandings of these experiences and will review the considerable international research on this form of gathering. 

The full extract of Dr McConville's gripping discourse can be found on our confirmed speakers page. Time is running out to book your place at the conference so why not take this opportunity to register for your ticket.

Who's who at the conference 26th October

Our last speaker of the day is Patrick Gleeson MA, UCC and his paper is entitled 'Gathering the Nations: Kingdoms, Communities and Civil Society in Early Medieval Ireland'. 

In early medieval Ireland there was a hierarchy of kingship in which each level or scale of political community would have had a specific landscape set aside for the purposes of assembly.  This paper will focus on the archaeological and toponymic footprint of assembly practices within a Northwest European context. It will examine how these places were utilised by different scales of community to address issues pertaining to the nature and development of their society, and how these landscapes and practices were implicated in broader process of polity building, and the origins of regional and national scales of identity. 

If you find Patrick's paper interesting and would like to hear more about what he has to say why not book your place at the conference where you can listen to his full paper and maybe ask him some questions about his fascinating research.

Update on social activities

We will be meeting informally for drinks in the View Bar of the Glasshouse Hotel from 9pm on Friday night, and we will have an area reserved for us there. This bar is upstairs. Please come and join us - all are welcome.

On Saturday evening the conference dinner will be in the Yeats function suite of the Glasshouse Hotel, at 8pm sharp, meeting beforehand in the View Bar, and continuing with more socialising in the bar afterwards. Again an area has been reserved for us in the bar.  All delegates are welcome in the bar area, and hopefully there will be a great turnout.  Do consider coming to the dinner as well and carry on the chat.