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This is a book about life and death over 8,500 years in Ireland. It explores the richness of the mortuary record that we have for Irish prehistory (8000 BC to AD 500) as a highlight of the archaeological record for that long period of time. Because we are dealing with how people coped with death, this rich and diverse record of mortuary practice is also relevant to understanding how we deal with death today, which is just as central a social issue as it always was.
'This well-written and beautifully illustrated book is a valuable and extensive presentation of death in prehistoric Ireland and beyond. The way Cooney explores long-term patterns by moving between the past and the present is inspirational.'
- Anna Wessman, Professor of Iron Age Archaeology, Department of Cultural History, University Museum of Bergen
'Death in Irish Prehistory is a magnificent achievement. In taking on eight and a half thousand years of death in Ireland, Cooney celebrates life, and shows us how enriching a deep knowledge of the past can be, as our ancestors knew. His breadth of scholarship is evident not only in his thorough and detailed summaries of Irish evidence, but also in being able to contextualise that knowledge within a European perspective, and explain it with reference to the most important and sophisticated developments in archaeological theory.
This book cautions us against over-simplifying. Death in Irish prehistory was never one thing, and change was never an abrupt replacement of one way of doing things by another. Instead, the people who lived and died on the island of Ireland were always looking back as well as forward, looking out as well as in. Cooney is clear-eyed and critical in his evaluations of currently fashionable lines of explanation, while drawing freely on ideas that help us get a more rounded and experiential sense of what it might have been to live and die in Ireland through the millennia. The book is evocatively illustrated by Conor McHale, and Cooney cites poetry and fiction, including using his own fictional vignettes, so that the human experience of dying and bereavement is never sacrificed in the quest for big patterns. Death in Irish Prehistory is a joy to read and offers riches both to archaeologists and to interested non-specialists. A strong recommend!'
- Sarah Tarlow, Professor of Historical Archaeology, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester
'Our humanity and our history share the same rich humus – the soil out of which our cities, civilizations, and we ourselves all rise and to which we humans return, whether earth to earth, ashes to ashes or dust to dust. It is what distinguishes us from the other sentient and mortal beings and Cooney’s erudition sheds a welcome light on the darker districts of our human being and ceasing to be.'
- Thomas Lynch – poet, essayist, undertaker.
illustrated by Conor McHale
https://www.abartaheritage.ie/death-in-irish-prehistory-part-1-amplify-archaeology-podcast/ is an excellent podcast wit hte author interviewed.
DELIVERY WITHIN IRELAND IS INCLUDED IN THE COST
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a feast for the eyes and mind
Every so often, an Irish archaeology book breaks the mould of typical academic texts and raises the bar for everything which comes after it. Almost a decade ago, that pioneering text was Early Medieval Ireland, AD 400-1100 (O’Sullivan et al 2013), aka the ‘white book’, so good it is now in its second edition. Professor Gabriel Cooney’s Death in Irish Prehistory is the new contender for groundbreaking (no pun intended) publications. The first thing the would-be reader notices is the shape and size of the book – chunky but small. The portable size generates an accessibility and intimacy usually lacking from the typical A4 archaeology text – this is a book meant to be carried with you, and actively read. There is something almost retro about the tactile cover, with its almost dreamlike drawing of a crouched interment on a soft grass-green background. Few archaeology books open with poetry, but one of Bernard O’Donoghue’s (2003) poems, ‘The Company of the Dead’, sets the atmosphere and theme of the text – “their only wish now to get warmer”. The symbolism is appropriate, as archaeology is a gentle form of necromancy performed by trowel and laboratory, which allows us to learn about the dead through what they have left behind.