About
Funded through the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the location for this year's investigation will be Lisnaskea with the excavation conducted as part of the LELP project entitled "People, Place, Power and Pageantry: Exploring Fermanagh in the time of the Maguires", undertaken in collaboration with the archaeologists from the Centre for Community Archaeology at Queen's University Belfast.
The Lisnaskea area was the heartland of the Maguire lordship during the Medieval period, with their inauguration centre based at Cornashee outside the modern town, and this was once a landscape of great political power. The focus of the excavation will be a large ringfort – a defended enclosure – at Lisdoo, which is thought may have been the main residence of the Maguire lords before they moved to where the early seventeenth century Castle Balfour was later built. Previous work at Lisdoo back in the 1970's highlighted that this ringfort was certainly an important place and this fieldwork hopes to amplify our understanding of the monument and its part in Lisnaskea's Maguire story.
A huge thank you to the local landowner of the site and once again LELP are delighted to receive support from the Historic Environment Division of the Department for Communities, and Fermanagh and Omagh District Council. The excavation will run over the course of three weeks, from Wednesday 7 September to Tuesday 27 September and – as was the case last year – members of the public who want to try their hand at being archaeologists will be able to take part in the fieldwork by registering with LELP.
There will be daily afternoon sessions each weekday, from 2.00pm to 4.00pm, from Thursday 8 September through to Friday 23 September. If you wish to try your hand at being an archaeologist on your doorstep, you will be able to take part in the fieldwork by registering your interest at info@lelp.org.uk, and let us know which afternoon(s) is suitable for you.
