This seminar will examine one of Ireland’s most iconic cultural heritage sites, the Hill of Tara, which boasts a wealth of associated archaeology, history, myth and literature. The archaeological complex on the hilltop includes a small Neolithic passage tomb, impressive Bronze Age burial monuments, Neolithic and Iron Age religious sanctuaries, and the great so-called ‘Royal’ enclosure (Rath na Ríogh: the ‘Fort of the Kings’) and the ‘Banqueting Hall’. In the early medieval period scholars gave names and ascribed histories to the various monuments at Tara (which would have looked exactly as they do now). Tara is predominantly represented as the residence of the High-Kings of Ireland in literary sources. The remains of the nearby Cistercian Abbey (Bective Abbey), on the banks of the River Boyne will also be explored.
