Eoin Grogan

Dr Eoin Grogan is a landscape archaeologist specialising in Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement and social studies. He also has a very considerable reputation as a prehistoric ceramic specialist. Eoin has published extensively and directed several excavations including Carrig, Co. Wicklow (National Museum of Ireland funded), Furness, Co. Kildare (Royal Irish Academy), Mitchelstowndown and Mitchelstowndown North, Co. Limerick, as well as the Clenagh hilltop settlement and the hillfort at Mooghaun, Co. Clare.

Eoin completed his archaeological studies, including a MA (1980) and PhD (1989), in University College Dublin. He worked in the Department of Archaeology as researcher, tutor, lecturer and ultimately Senior Lecturer from 1977–1992. During this period, he designed, taught and examined courses on the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Ireland and Europe, and Iron Age and early medieval studies. Eoin also completed the Archaeological Inventory of County Wicklow (Grogan and Kilfeather 1998), while a major research grant from the OPW—with financial assistance from UCD—funded the analysis and publication of five Neolithic and Beaker habitation enclosures excavated by Professor Seán P. Ó Ríordáin at Lough Gur, Co. Limerick (Grogan and Eogan 1987). He was co-founder (with Professor Gabriel Cooney) of the Irish Stone Axe Project and a member of the Implement Petrology Committee (Britain), as well as the founding Chairman of the Organisation of Irish Archaeologists.

From 1992–2002 Eoin was Research Director in the Discovery Programme—Ireland’s institution for advanced archaeological research (North Munster Project 1992–2000, Lake Settlement Project 2000–2000). Other research included Partnership in three EU Projects, The Walton Basin, Wales: Survey Exploration and Preservation of the Archaeological Heritage (SEPAH, 1997–1998), European Pathways to the Cultural Landscape (PCL, 2001–2003), and Communities of Interest Promoting Heritage of the European Regions (CIPHER, 2002–2003). From 2003–2012 he was an Academic Consultant to the National Roads Authority (now TII) and Academic Editor for a series of NRA/TII monographs (four published and four in press). In 2005 he published The Rath of the Synods, Tara, Co. Meath: excavations by Seán P. Ó Ríordáin helping to complete the lifetime work of that distinguished scholar.

Dr Grogan began teaching (for the History Department, and subsequently for the Early Irish Department) in Maynooth University in 2003. He was closely involved in the establishment, in 2013, of an innovative new academic unit—Ionad na hÉigse (the Centre for Irish Cultural Heritage), now Irish Cultural Heritage—in the School of Celtic Studies, Maynooth University; this provides integrated learning in the fields of archaeology, history, early Irish literature and landscape studies.

Current projects include the assessment and publication of the very extensive, and nationally important, crannog excavation at Moynagh Lough, Co. Meath, carried out by his late colleague John Bradley of the History Department, Maynooth University. The research, funded by the Royal Irish Academy and Maynooth University, is led by Dr Michael Potterton (of the same department) and Dr Grogan (Irish Cultural Heritage) has undertaken the research and reporting of the Bronze Age phases of the report. This year, substantial work has been completed on the ceramic component of the assemblage. Another important area of research is on the Bronze Age cemetery at Carrig, Co, Wicklow, funded by the National Museum of Ireland. This study is engaged in the publication of the rich funerary complex at Carrig and the extensive Bronze Age landscape in the area overlooking the Liffey Valley. The site was, uniquely, in use for over 1,000 years (c. 2000–800 BC) and produced an important assemblage of associated (and intact) Bronze Age pottery, copper alloy implements and (locally manufactured) faience beads.

Dr Grogan has published 14 books (as author, co-author, editor or co-editor), as well as over 100 book chapters and journal papers, and has completed over four hundred reports (many published) on Irish prehistoric ceramic assemblages and continues to engage in this specialist research. He has presented numerous papers, at conferences and as guest lecturer, in Ireland, Britain, Finland, the Czech Republic, Malta and Canada.