Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:02:34.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Maritime archaeology in Northern Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Brian Williams
Affiliation:
Environment & Heritage Service, 5–33 Hill Street, Belfast BT1 2LA, Northern Ireland. brian.williams@doeni.gov.uk
Tom McErlean
Affiliation:
Centre for Maritime Archaeology, School of Biological & Environmental Sciences, University of Ulster, Coleraine BT52 1SA, Northern Ireland. tc.mcerlean@ulst.ac.uk

Extract

Introduction

The study of maritime archaeology is a relatively new activity in Northern Ireland. This paper introduces the approach that has been adopted in investigating the maritime cultural landscape and takes a detailed look at the maritime archaeology of Strangford Lough.

Only in the last decade has government in Northern Ireland been responsible for the management of maritime archaeology. The Department of the Environment agency, Environment and Heritage Service (EHS), administers the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 in Northern Ireland's territorial waters. Having no knowledge of the subject and faced with the management of shipwrecks, EHS Grst created a register of known shipwrecks. A Senior Fellow, Colin Breen, was appointed in 1993 in the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University Belfast. Using docurnentary sourc:es such as Lloyd's List and Lloyd's Register, together with Parlianientary Sessional papers and many other documentary sources, he identified some 3000 wrecks around Northern Ireland’s short coastline (Breen 1996).

Type
Special section: Archaeology in Ireland
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Breen, C., 1996. Maritime archaeology in Northern Ireland: an interim statement, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 25(1): 5565.Google Scholar
Breen, C., 2001a. Integrated marine investigations on the historic shipwreck La Surveillante. Coleraine: University of Ulster. CMA Monograph 1.Google Scholar
Breen, C., 2001b. East African coastal archaeology. Archaeology Ireland 15(2,56): 22–3.Google Scholar
DOE. 1999. Planning Policy Statement 6: Planning, Archaeology and the Built Heritage. Belfast: Department of the Environment.Google Scholar
Fry, M.. 2000. Coití, logboats from Northern Ireland. Belfast: EHS/DOENI. Norlhern Ireland Archaeological Monograph 4.Google Scholar
McCartan, S., Forthcoming. Report on archaeological objects from the Strangford Lough region in museum collections, in McErlean, et al. (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Mcerlean, T., 1999. Maritime archaeology in Northern Ireland, in Irish Sea Forum, Seminar report, Marine Archaeology of the Irish Sea, University of Liverpool, 14 January 1999: 7789. Liverpool: University of Liverpool.Google Scholar
Mcerlean, T., & Crothers, N.. 2001. Tidal power in the seventh and eighth centuries AD, Archaeology Ireland 15 (2,56): 1014.Google Scholar
Mcerlean, T., Mcconkey, R. & Forsyth, W.. Forthcoming. The maritime cultural landscape of Strangford Lough.Google Scholar
Quinn, R., Cooper, J.A.G. & Williams, B.. 2000. Marine geophysical investigations of the inshore coastal waters of Northern Ireland, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 29(2): 294–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westerdahl, C., 1992. The Maritime cultural landscape, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 2(1): 514.Google Scholar
Williams, B., 1996. Inter-tidal archaeology in Strangford Lough, Archaeology Ireland 10(3,37): 1416.Google Scholar
Williams, B., 2001. Commercial developments and their impact on maritime heritage: the Northern Ireland experience, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 30(1): 511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar