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. We will also visit the very fine archaeological remains of the Cistercian Abbey beside the river Boyne, Bective Abbey, along with Ireland's largest Anglo-Norman castle at nearby Trim, Co. Meath.