ABSTRACT
If you travel west from Ireland, the next stop is America. Ireland is at the very edge of the ‘old world’ and was on the northwestern fringes of the ancient world. Its archaeology goes back to the end of the last European glaciation, to about 7000 BC, and the island has seen many waves of newcomers and invaders: the first neolithic farmers, Celtic-speaking aristocrats in later prehistoric times, Christian missionaries, hostile Vikings, Anglo-Norman adventurers and English and Scottish ‘planters’. These are the complex elements that contribute to the cultural heritage of Irish people today and which have left a legacy of archaeological sites, place-names, myths, traditions and stories. We do well to recall this complexity when considering concepts like ‘native’ and ‘alien’ material culture.
