Between the fifth century and the ninth, several thousand churches were founded in Ireland, a greater density than most other regions of Europe. This period saw fundamental changes in settlement patterns, agriculture, social organisation, rituals and beliefs, and churches are an important part of that story. The premise of this book is that landscape archaeology is one of the most fruitful ways to study them. By looking at where they were placed in relation to pagan ritual and royal sites, burial grounds, and settlements, and how they fared over the centuries, we can map the shifting strategies of kings, clerics and ordinary people. The result is a fascinating new perspective on this formative period, with wider implications for the study of social power and religious change elsewhere in Europe. The earliest churches, founded at a time of religious diversity (400-550), were often within royal landscapes, showing that some sections of the elite chose to make space for the new religion. These often lost out to new monasteries positioned at a remove from core royal land, making it possible to grant them the great estates on which their wealth was based (550-800). Now, however, founding churches was no longer a prerogative of kings for we see numerous lesser churches outside these estates. In this way middle-ranking people helped transform the landscape and shape religious cultures in which rituals and beliefs of local origin co-existed alongside Christianity. Finally, in the Viking Age (800-1100), some lesser churches were abandoned while community churches began to exert more of a gravitational pull, foreshadowing the later medieval parish system.

About the Author
Tomas O Carragain of the Archaeology Department, University College Cork, specialises in the archaeology of early medieval Ireland and its European context (AD 400-1200). His publications include Inishmurray: Monks and Pilgrims in an Atlantic Landscape (The Collins Press, 2008, co-authored with Jerry O'Sullivan), Churches in Early Medieval Ireland: Architecture, Ritual and Memory (Yale University Press, 2010), Making Christian Landscapes in Atlantic Europe (Cork University Press, 2016, co-edited with Sam Turner) and Climate and Society in Ireland from Prehistory to the Present (Royal Irish Academy, 2021, co-edited with James Kelly).


Book Information
ISBN 9781782054306
Author Tomas O Carragain
Format Hardback
Page Count 434
Imprint Cork University Press
Publisher Cork University Press