HERoNI Lecture Series
DfC Historic Environment presents an annual HERoNI Lecture Series, providing an insight into our local heritage, archaeology and more. All of the HERoNI events are in person and are free to attend. They will be held at 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter at the date and times listed. To book your spot on any of the lectures just click on the Eventbrite link.
The great Neolithic timber temple at Ballynahatty - death, ritual and the ancestors
Wednesday 26 March 2025, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Barrie Hartwell
Just six miles from the centre of Belfast, at Ballynahatty in County Down, is one of Ireland’s great Neolithic henge monuments: the 200m-wide Giant’s Ring. For well over a thousand years, this plateau above the River Lagan was the focus of intense funerary ritual including a great timber enclosure, 90m long, with an elaborate entrance and inner temple - a public building in the grand style, elegantly designed to control space, views, and access to an inner sanctum containing a platform for exposure of the dead. By 2550 BC the timber temple had been swept away in a massive conflagration replaced by one of the last great public ceremonial enterprises known to have been constructed by the Neolithic people of the north of Ireland – the Giant’s Ring. It has survived for 4,500 years, an enduring symbol of the ancestral heartland of the Neolithic farmers of the Lagan Valley and their enigmatic religion.
Barrie Hartwell is Honorary Curator and formerly Senior Research Officer in Archaeology at Queen’s University Belfast. He excavated the timber enclosure over 10 seasons during the 1990s and is editor with Sarah Gormley, Catriona Brogan and Caroline Malone of ‘Ballynahatty: Excavations in a Neolithic Monumental Landscape’.
Excavations of a Neolithic Tomb at Tirnony, Maghera, Co. Derry/Londonderry
Wednesday 30 April 2025, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Dr Cormac McSparron
In the harsh winter of 2010, a combination of root action, and a hard frost, cracked one of the stones supporting the structure of Tirnony Dolmen causing the capstone to collapse into the interior of the tomb. In advance of the repair and reconstruction of the tomb, an excavation was carried out by Queen’s in collaboration with HED (then NIEA) to record the deposits around and inside the tomb which risked being damaged during the restoration. The excavation revealed a complex monument with evidence for human burial and ritual in the Neolithic period. Artefacts discovered during the excavation included fragments of pottery vessels of Neolithic date and flint knives and scrapers. Radiocarbon dates revealed that the monument was constructed about 3900BC.
Dr Cormac McSparron directed the excavations at Tirnony Dolmen. He is a Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. He has directed and published a number of important excavations of varying types and periods in Ireland. He has a wide range of research interests, including the Irish Neolithic period, early and later Medieval Coarse potting traditions, the Early Bronze Ages, funerary archaeology, and the archaeology of migration.
The Workhouse Fever Hospital in the North of Ireland: buildings, doctors and patients
Wednesday 28 May 2025, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Gill Almond
In 1844, following a world-wide typhus epidemic that affected many towns in Ireland, George Wilkinson, architect to the Poor Law Commissioners, was asked to produce designs for fever hospitals, to be added to workhouse sites. Although reluctant provision had been made for the sick poor in Wilkinson’s original workhouse designs, the workhouses were originally intended primarily for the able-bodied poor. The construction of the fever hospitals marked the beginning of the long transition made by many workhouses from buildings designed to discourage the poor from relying on the state, to modern hospital facilities caring for all. This talk will consider the architecture and layouts of the Fever Hospitals, some of the doctors associated with them, the types of diseases and treatments offered, the experience of patients and the survival and use of buildings to the present day.
Dr Gillian Allmond is an archaeologist of the post-medieval era, currently working on HED’s Second Survey of buildings of special architectural or historic interest. Gill is the author of a book, ‘Village and Colony asylums in Britain, Ireland and Germany, 1880-1914’ and her main research interest is buildings and landscapes associated with healthcare.
The Irish High Cross- Origins, Revival and Replicas
Friday 13 June 2025, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Bronagh Murray
Irish High Crosses are some of the most iconic and evocative of our ancient monuments. They are highly decorated masterpieces of Early Medieval sculpture in stone. During the 19th century in Ireland the ancient High Cross captured the attention of artists and sculptors of the “Celtic Revival”, most notably Henry O’Neill. The revival of interest in these monuments led to replica High Crosses being cast and displayed at exhibitions across the globe. Monumental sculptors, inspired by these replicas, made grave markers in the style of High Crosses, changing the skylines of Irish graveyards in the process. In 2024 a full-scale replica of the 10th century Donaghmore Cross was manufactured to mark and celebrate the co-location of HERoNI and PRONI, at the Titanic Quarter, Belfast, where the cross is on display in the atrium.
This lecture will explore the origins and chronological development of the High Cross and its later revivals. This lecture celebrates European Archaeology Days (EAD).
Bronagh Murray is Project Officer for Archaeology 2030: A strategic approach for Northern Ireland, she is an archaeologist within Heritage Records and Designations Branch, Historic Environment Division. Bronagh’s specialist research area is in Iron Age and Early Medieval sculpture. She has worked on numerous excavations throughout Northern Ireland from prehistoric settlements to 19th century vernacular dwellings.