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).
