Ancient Ireland
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The Mesolithic Stone Age
The Neolithic Stone Age
The Bronze Age
The Celts
Ancient Ireland
Mesolithic
Stone Age
7000 BC
Neolithic
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Stone Age
4000 BC
Bronze
Age
2000 BC
Iron?Age
Celts
500 BC
Mesolithic Stone Age
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Axes
Spears and
Harpoons
Scrapers
Bone Needles
First people in Ireland
8000 BC
Tools and weapons made of stone
Hunter gatherers
Ate berries, nuts, fish, wild pig, deer and
other animals
• Mount Sandal, River Bann
Northern Ireland
Neolithic Stone Age
• Means ‘New Stone’ Age – they still made
weapons and tools from stone
• 4000 BC: First farmers
Changes
Sharper polished stone tools
They introduced pottery, farming,
ploughs, barley and wheat, farm
animals like sheep, cattle and pigs
Built bigger stronger houses made of
wattle and daub walls and thatched
roofs
Megaliths
Neolithic farmers brought pottery to
Ireland.
• They used stones to grind the wheat for bread
Look at the houses on page 21
• Usually rectangular.
• thatched roofs made of straw.
• A hole in the roof was a chimney for fires, lit on a
stone in the middle of the floor.
• They drove timber posts into the ground and held
them in place with rocks.
• They made walls out of ‘wattle’ and ‘daub’.
• Wattle was made by weaving twigs and branches
through sticks (like basket making)
• Daub is a mixture of mud and straw which was
‘daubed’ on the wattle.
• Wattle and daub made the houses warmer and less
drafty.
First Farmers: Sites
Because the ‘Neolithic Farmers
A. Settled in one place
B. Had a reliable food supply they were able to form
communities and work together, for example:
C. They were able to build bigger structures: megaliths
D. Megaliths prove they believed in life after death
Sites where neolithic farmers lived
1. Lough Gur, County Limerick,
2. The Ceide Fields, County Mayo,
Court Cairn, Creevykeel, Co Sligo
Court Cairns consist of:
1. A semi-circular ‘Court’ at
the front where bodies
were cremated.
2. An entrance way made
of two upright stones
and a capstone.
3. A ‘Passage’ leading to
the burial chamber
4. A Chamber where
cremated remains were
placed
5. A cairn, a mound of
smaller stones placed
over the structure.
Creevkeel, Co Sligo
Court Cairn
Poulnabrone Dolmen, the Burren,
Co Clare
• Dolmens are stone age
tombs
• Cremated remains,
human bones, pottery
and weapons have been
found in Dolmens.
• Poulnabrone Dolmen on
the Burren in Co Clare
was used for 500 years to
bury the dead.
Capstone
Portals
Passage Graves
• A long passage leads to a chamber deep
inside
• The walls of the passage are made of
large upright slabs
• The roof is corbelled and covered with an
earth mound
• Examples are Newgrange, Dowth and
Knowth
• Newgrange is a case study
Newgrange: Case Study
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4500 years old: oldest building in Europe
Long passage leads to a chamber.
The roof is corbelled
Stones are decorated with spirals
The light box over the entrance is
positioned so that sunlight lights the inner
chamber on the shortest day of the year
• They knew a great deal about the sun.
• They were skilled builders
After Excavation
Neolithic Settlements
• Lough Gur, Co
Limerick
• Circular houses with
wattle and daub wall
and thatched roofs
• Post holes
• Ceide Fields, Co
Mayo
• Sewed wheat and
barley
• Ground the grain with
a rotary quern
• Kept cows, sheep and
goats in stone walled
fields
The Bronze Age
What’s new?
• Bronze to make weapons and tools
• New jewelry: torcs and lunalae
• Fulacht fia
• Individual graves:
1. Cist Graves
2. Wedge Graves
3. Standing Stones
How Bronze objects were made
• Rock containing copper
was broken and smelted
over a fire
• Smelted copper (from
Killarney) and tin (from
Cornwall, England) were
mixes and poured into a
mould
• Bronze axes,
arrowheads, spear
heads, and the first
swords
Bronze Age Jewelry was made by
smiths: a new craft to Ireland
Lunala: thin
and moon
shaped
Torc: gold
twisted into
bracelets and
necklaces
Fulacth Fia
• Fulacht fia was an
ancient cooking place
• Dug near a river, so it
would fill with water
• Lined with stone slabs
• Rocks are heated in a fire
and put in the water to
boil it
• Cooked meat wrapped in
straw
Bronze Age Graves
• 1. Cist Grave
• Carnmore, Co Louth
• Rectangular pit lined
with stone slabs
• Person buried in
crouched position with
grave goods such as
food and weapons
• Wedge Tombs
• Lisdoonvarna, Co
Clare
• Shaped like a wedge
of cheese
• Standing Stones
• Drombeg, Co Cork
• Might have been a
type of calendar
Wedge Tomb
Mesolithic Stone
Age
Neolithic Stone Age
Bronze Age
8000 BC
Hunter Gatherers
Hut-like houses
Weapons and tools
made of stone
Mount Sandal
4000 BC
First Farmers
Wattle and daub houses
Pottery, wheat and barley
Pigs, sheep and cattle
Megaliths
Dolmens (Poulnabrone)
Court Cairns(Creevkeel)
Passage Graves (Newgrange)
Ceide Fields
Lough Gur
2000 BC
Weapons and tools
made of bronze
Torc & Lunala
Smelting and moulds
First smiths
First swords
Fulacht fia / rotary
querns
Individual graves
Cist Graves (Carnmore,
Co Louth)
Wedge Tombs
(Lisdoonvarna, Co
Clare)
Standing Stones