ABSTRACT

The reality, however, is that this traditional deterrent effect based on folklore has now largely disappeared amongst the Irish farming community and other active agents in the Irish rural landscape, who are more in tune with the latest twists in the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union than with stories associated with the land that would be seen as relating to outmoded ideas about life. Now the folklore itself has become part of the history of sites and it has by and large lost its active meaning. It is also clear that despite the deterrent effect of folklore the destruction of sites has been going on on a large scale in Ireland for hundreds of years (e.g. O’Flanagan 1981). Evans (1966:1) quotes T.J.Westropp writing in 1897 deploring the way in which sites were being destroyed or damaged. In some of these acts of destruction there may in fact also have been an attempt to harness the other major aspect of the folklore embedded into archaeological sites, that is the power incorporated into them, as reflected in the frequent tales of buried treasure. On the other hand there are instances where sites have continued to be actively used and venerated up to the present day, such as in the case of holy wells or hilltop cairns.